Exit
Will Smith, Robert Downey Jr.
and, now, perhaps Tatum. What
do half of the names on that list
have in common? They all made
films with Soderbergh at key
points in their careers.
To wit: Before appearing in
Soderbergh’s Out of Sight, Clooney was on the cusp of becoming a cautionary tale for TV stars
who wanted to make the switch
to movies. (Clooney starred in the
underwhelming quartet of From
Dusk Till Dawn, The Peacemaker,
One Fine Day and Batman and
Robin between 1996 and 1997.)
After Out of Sight, Clooney led
box office hits Three Kings and A
Perfect Storm. Then — following
the well-received O Brother Where
Art Thou? — Clooney reunited
with Soderbergh to play the title
character in Ocean’s 11. The film
grossed $450 million worldwide.
It remains his biggest hit ever.
Speaking of Ocean’s 11, between
1995’s Seven and the 2001 film,
Pitt had made nine movies in a
row that failed to top even $70
million at the box office (this includes outright flops like Meet Joe
Black and The Devil’s Own). After
working with Soderbergh, four of
Pitt’s next five films crossed $100
million at the domestic box office,
BEHIND
THE SCENES
HUFFINGTON
03.31.13
and the fifth film — Babel — was a
Best Picture nominee.
Back in November of last year,
Damon noted that he had a “couple movies that didn’t work, and
some of them had big enough
budgets that people care, and so
basically my phone just stopped
ringing.” The dry spell occurred
after the 2000 flops The Legend of Bagger Vance and All the
Pretty Horses. Damon’s next
film? Ocean’s 11 in 2001, which
If there’s a formula …
for becoming a movie star in
the last 15 years, at least one
portion of it is tied almost
symbiotically to Soderbergh.”
was immediately followed by The
Bourne Identity in 2002. His
phone started ringing again.
Then there’s Tatum: Soderbergh can’t take all the credit for
Tatum’s 2012 — after all, both
The Vow and 21 Jump Street hit
$100 million before Magic Mike
arrived in theaters — but Magic
Mike was the first film that sold
Tatum as “Channing Tatum, Movie Star.” As Harris notes, if we’re