Nicole Kidman – Box Office Poison?
I don’t like Nicole Kidman. It’s nothing personal, I just never really enjoyed watching her strain her way through her art house movie roles. She’s never proved herself to be a superb actress. She’s solid, but hardly extraordinary. And with the measly opening for The Golden Compass ($27 million for this $200+ million fantasy epic), we are again reminded that she is not yet a movie star.
Kidman has never had a box office smash, the closest being The Others in 2001 which made $95 million at the North American box office. The film that earned her the Best Actress Oscar, The Hours, only garnered $41 million, which was a smashing success considering the film, but a meager take otherwise. Her other Oscar film, Moulin Rouge!, only made $57 million, though its post-theatrical success may have most people thinking otherwise.
Only one Kidman film has ever grossed more than $100 million and that’s Batman Forever, a film where she plays second fiddle to a popular superhero. My question is, after the flops of The Invasion, Bewitched, The Stepford Wives and now The Golden Compass, how can Kidman save her career?
Kidman’s closest run in with success after The Others was 2005’s The Interpreter, a political thriller co-starring Sean Penn and directed by Sydney Pollack. The film made $72 million, featured a surprisingly strong turn from Kidman as a U.N. interpreter and will likely make a ton of cash in TV rights.
The Interpreter proved that Kidman, with the right role and the right co-star and the right director, could in fact be a legitimate success. But the film wasn’t the usual art-house film with an excruciating performance. It wasn’t a dubious comedic role that even Faith Hill could outperform. No, The Interpreter is classical filmmaking, the kind that Pollack is good at and the kind that Kidman, who has all the qualities of an elegant star, can use as a vehicle for her persona. I believed Kidman’s performance in The Interpreter more than I have any of her other performances. Kidman needs another film as smart and well-made as The Interpreter, one that doesn’t rely heavily on her star power to be a success.
Jodi Foster has been doing this for years, taking on commercial projects and surprising audiences with just how good of an actress she can be. Foster’s role in Fincher’s 2002 film Panic Room was initially Kidman’s, but Kidman had to drop out because of an injury. From there Foster has made Flightplan, Inside Man and The Brave One, all films that showed off Foster’s acting chops without relying on Foster as the main draw. All were successes in their own right, with the exception of The Brave One, a film that did rely more heavily on Foster as a star. And it still made $36 million domestic.
If Kidman wants to her next role to be a success, she better keep her eyes out for another Interpreter. Her career needs the boost that can come from a series of hit thrillers. Once we’re in the seats because of the film, maybe then we’ll start to fill the seats to actually see Kidman.
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