Bill Paxton's Titanic Career Sink

I don't believe in Jinx's and things of that sort, but in light of Bill's choice in movies in the last 7 years (including his upcoming movie "Thunderbirds") since Titanic, he's seemed to have gone steadily down hill. "U-571" was a good film, but wasn't so successful. I never did see "Frailty", but with movies like "Verticle Limit", "Spy Kids 2 & 3", "Club Dread", and now "Thunderbirds", things don't seem to be looking up for Paxton. What happened to rolls like "Morgan Earp" in "Tombstone", or "Fred Haise" in "Apollo 13", or "William Harding" in "Twister"... heck, I even liked the guy as "Hudson" in "Aliens". Who can forget the line that made Bill famous "Game over man, game over!!"? We know he's capable of excellent performances as in Tombstone, so what's his deal?:o

- Josh

Wow, I just had an epiphany! Could McDonalds be the real writers behind "Thunderbirds"? I mean if they're going to be doing things like parking the "thunderbird" in the "thundergarage", could this be anything like having a McFish sandwitch supersized Mcfries, and a supersized Mcdrink, at a Mcsitdown Mctable, in a McDonalds? Will we here lines like "mom, will you get the thundermilk for me?" "only after you brush your thunderteeth son".

Ugh... I thought that movie makers had taken parent's sanity into consideration when making kids movies now days. Take the "Lion King" (and pretty much every Disney cartoon since) has had adult humor and references in them, to make sure the parents had a good time as well. At least with Thunderbirds you can make a firm decision NOT to see it. There have been movies that are WELL marketed, and edited for TV spots, and then when you see the film, you find out all the funny scenes have been shown in the TV spot, and you wind up being bored to death or walking out.

why thank you,

and ben kingsley plays the arch nemesis of the thunder family!?

c'mon, remember the days when he won best actor (well, i wasnt alve, but ive seen the cover for ghandi at blockbuster...)?

wow, this looks to be the number one career shaterer of the year.

i just feel bad for the supporting cast of munchkins. what kind of pay-by-the-hour agent do these kids have?

and if you were that main character teenager, wouldn't you have the mental capacity to read the script and know that this would be one of the biggest flops/worst movies of the year? i know that you would probably take whatever you could get in his situation, but c'mon, not this!

with this and sleepover this summer it is certainly a the year to be a movie-lover...


i know that if i had a kid who wanted to see this, i would tell him that it ends withthe devil killing santa, the easter bunny, and the tooth fairy. and that it is a true story


but i'm still wondering where mrs. thunder is...
perhaps in the directors cut we will see her dying a violent death by hitting the gas instead of the brake while parking a thunder-bird into the thunder-garage...thats why i love dvd's

Matt,

Well made fun of. Thunderbirds looks to be such a horrible movie, I have a hard time sitting through the trailer at theaters. I feel sorry for parents who's kids want to see this movie. It looks to be nothing short of a painful death.

TGP,

I'll have to check out "Frailty" if it's getting such high marks. The review is good as well.

For me, the best picture of 97 was LA Confidential.

A Simple Plan is also really good, and True Lies is one of my all-time fave Arnold movies. Great action, plot, humor, everything! Titanic could've been a good flick, but it was overblown and overhyped and not as good as As Good As It Gets, which lost the Best Picture Oscar in favor of Titanic. The Academy always does that. They gave the Oscar to Chicago when Pianist or Gangs of New York should've gotten it.

i thought club dread was actually kind of funny (probably the only person in america) , and i think tht thunderbirds looks to be one of the worst movies in the history of celluloid. i've never seen any of the tv show, but it has to be better, than this family flick that features the tagline: "thunderbirds are go!" and spectacular writing like:

left out son/hero: i can do this, i know i can.
cocky older brother (that the kids can reasily relate to):hes just a kid.
family-man father(mysteriously missing mrs. thunderbird):no, hes a tracy.

then sometime in the trailer i heard: its time to thunderize!


wow...

Dont forget "A Simple Plan." "Club Dread" was not very good, but I thought Bill Paxton was pretty funny in it. Anyway, I always thought there was a "True Lies" curse. Think about it: Tia Carrera (where is her?), Tom Arnold (nuff said), Arnold (T3 was the only decent thing he did afterwards), Jamie Lee Curtis (finally she has a career in family films, but will never escape hermie jokes), and of course Jimmy. Titantic was a huge success, but not up to quality...

I will 2nd that notion in favor of Frailty. Great movie, performances, and direction on Bill's part.

Frailty is an absolutely INCREDIBLE film that he stars and directs in. See it, it's awesome. Thunderbirds is based off an old claymation TV show. It looks alright, kind of Spy Kids-esque, I hope it's good. U-571 was decent, Club Dread could have been better, etc. I LOVE BIll Paxton, he's great. He may have been in a few bad flicks, but he makes any bad flick better with his charisma and enthusiasm. I might check out Thunderbirds, it could be good... But seriously, Frailty is a classic in my mind. Everyone should see it. I'd like to see Paxton direct more. With Frailty being his debut, who knows what he's capable of?

Eddie,

It's cool. I usually try to explain myself thoroughly because what you mean, and how people take your meaning can get easily confused in text.

Good point. I've loved Murphy as "Axle Foley", and in "I-Spy". I can understand his wanting to do movies he wouldn't mind his kids watching. So far the only one's I've enjoyed have been the "Dr. Dolittle's". Actor Kevin Kline has turned down MANY big roles in order to go after what he "want's" to do. Kline is one of the greats today.

- Josh

Josh,

Hey, I know that you're not picking a fight. :)

I actually understand what you mean, but there are times when people choose movies based on what they want to do rather than on what is "good". For example, Eddie Murphy makes awful "family" movies because he wants to make movies for his kids now. That's really up to Mr. Murphy, though I have to wonder about any dad who would subject his kids to stuff like "Daddy Day Care" and "The Haunted Mansion".

Eddie

Eddie,

Don't get me wrong... I think Paxton is a great actor. I was just wondering why (since Titanic) he's had nothing but pitfalls. I'll have to disagree with you on "Verticle Limit". I didn't get very much out of that movie at all. But if you look at Paxtons career since Titanic, it's been horrible choices in movies, with maybe the exception of "Frailty", since I haven't seen that. I was just curious as to why such a good actor has had 7 years of bad luck. Did the guy break a mirror or what?!

- Josh

So, maybe Paxton will be playing Mr. Moto before long? (That was Lorre's only continuing starring role, a low-budget series in the thirties. Not to be confused with his one great starring role in "M.")

John

I recall a few years back reading an interview with Bill Paxton and him mentioning his career was pretty much: one family film and then an independent, and so on and so on...I dont mind it. Like Eddie said, he's a great actor and every few years he hits one of the park, as was the case with A Simple Plan and Frailty.

Tony

"vertical limit" is a decent movie.

bill paxton is always interesting to watch, though he can't seem to become a leading man in his own right. i dunno, throughout cinema history, a lot of people have been great as character actors, and i don't think it hurt peter lorre's reputation any that he was a kooky sidekick rather than the main character in most of his movies. the same can be said for bill paxton, so let's not write him off too quickly. :)

probably. in the movie we will also see;

all of the thunderkids go into thuder-puberty
see them get thunder-acne
fight the thunder-villian
save the thunder-day
thunder-rescue who ever they were trying to thunder-save
and then a storm and we'll hear some thunder
everyone goes to the thunder-basement
the thunder-family eats some leftover thunder-tacos
the thunder kids get thunder-diarrhea

just wanted to post this:

Thunderbirds racked in a whopping opening-weekend gross of...



$2.7mil.!!! wow! ive never seen a movie bomb like that! i think new york did twice that! i think gigli tripled that! astounding!

Both New York Minute and Gigli got by Thunderbirds easily, but they didn't do double or triple business, respectively. On its opening weekend, New York Minute did much better, making $5,962,106 (taken from imdb.com). Gigli did considerably less, but making more than Thunderbirds with an opening weekend of $3,753,518. Even with that disappointment, Universal has also got something to be happy about with The Bourne Supremacy's weekend take which puts it right near $100 million. Universal has one more film they can do, with The Bourne Ultimatum and I did read the other day that they plan to extend it to a fourth film and possibly beyond. All they have to do is remember how carefully to treat the material because they got this much success with it through certain elements: Good directors (Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass), a satisfying script by Tony Gilroy, and of course Matt Damon taking on a role that no one expected him to do. And some good action too but more than that, character development.

Anyway, back on topic. Post-Thunderbirds, Paxton's on an indie film called "Haven", but there's nothing listed for him beyond that. In my opinion, he should head back to the director's chair. After Frailty, it's a good idea.