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Lights! Camera! Geritol!
Are audiences ready for a rickety Indiana Jones?
(Page 2)
As unfair as it may be to bring it up, it’s hardly news that Hollywood is kinder to aging men than women, Epps says. “A male star can play much deeper into his career. Actresses have a much shorter life span.”
Dolph Lundgren can commiserate with his Rocky IV co-star about life as an older action hero. Lundgren’s role in the Rocky franchise started a 22-year film career in which he used his hulking size to break heads on-screen.
Now 50, Lundgren recently wrote and directed Missionary Man, a modern Western in the spirit of Shane. He says older action stars may not do as many crazy stunts as their younger peers, but creatively they can add a depth to their performances that neophyte Rambos can’t.
That’s important, he says, since today’s action fans demand more complex storylines than what passed for plots in the 1980s. Lundgren still works out every day, whether he’s prepping for a new film or not, but he understands that no amount of pushups can bring back his youth.
“As you get older, you have to change a little bit physically. You can’t be as crazy,” Lundgren says, who adds he does just as many of his own stunts today, if not more, than he did in his heyday.
As for Stallone, Lundgren thinks the new Rambo will click with fans based on its hyper-violent trailer. “That will set it apart,” he says.
Age certainly plays a part in the marketing of these projects. Look at Ford, who hasn’t had a box office hit since 2000’s What Lies Beneath and looked bored in busts like 2003’s Hollywood Homicide and 2006’s Firewall. Visit IndianaJones.com, the official Website for the upcoming flick, and you’ll instantly see an image of Jones’ whip and iconic hat—but no Ford. The poster for the forthcoming Rambo shows Stallone from the back, highlighting his muscular frame, not his aged face.
Brandon Gray, president and publisher of Box Office Mojo, says the strengths of the respective franchises mean much more than any crow’s feet or gray hair.
The Rambo series only had one blockbuster—Rambo: First Blood Part II—while all three Indiana Jones films hit the commercial mark.
Gray dismisses the age factor, assuming the films offer a tasty blend of storytelling and action. “I don’t think the audience cares that much, as long as it’s believable,” he says, but later adds, “and the actors don’t look too haggard.” Besides, today’s adult audiences grew up watching Stallone, Willis and Ford in action movies, whereas an older actor who hasn’t broken a few bones on-screen might be difficult to swallow. That track record “keeps this from being a major issue in audiences’ minds,” says Gray.
Some of the recent aging action stars have hedged their bets by injecting their casts with younger stars. Live Free or Die Hard featured Justin Long (the Mac guy) to banter with Willis’ hero, and Ford will have teen sensation Shia LaBeouf (Transformers) to pal around with this spring.
Hanson says today’s stars in general tend to shine longer, if not as bright, as their cinematic peers from earlier eras. Actors who ruled Hollywood in the 1940s all but disappeared as major attractions 30 years later.
Yet the actors who broke through in the 1960s and ’70s, like Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood and Robert De Niro, still command above-the-title respect today. Maybe it’s just that today’s actors are savvier about the roles they choose and how they navigate the press gauntlet to keep their names in the public’s mind. Or, offers Hanson, it could be that audiences realize the older stars look more and more like they do.
“I do believe that the demographics of the U.S. population help people accept older stars in action roles,” Hanson says.
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Frank Hillhurst on 5/20/08 at 4:26 am
anyone else think this is gonna blow? eattheblinds.blogspot.com has a funny preview piece on indy 4
- Comment by travel on 5/27/08 at 9:38 pm
great movie
- Comment by Aakarshan on 5/29/08 at 6:19 pm
Light! Camera! Where?
- Comment by French Property on 10/22/08 at 6:41 am
If only they would revert back to one of the older bonds instead of the charisma-less Daniel Craig.
- Comment by pressure cooker on 3/29/09 at 5:38 am
I love this movie! Really Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones is my role model from childhood:)
- Comment by Roman on 3/31/09 at 12:51 pm
I really loved The Indiana Jones movie
- Comment by Matthew on 4/11/09 at 8:02 am
This was superb movie! Love Indys adventures a lot!
- Comment by club penguin on 5/21/09 at 3:39 am
Recall Ford getting slugged a few times in Blade Runner or any previous Indiana Jones installment and you’ll know what Epps means. Few stars grimace with gravitas like Ford.
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- Comment by Sildenafil on 8/17/10 at 10:38 am
I ready for a rickety Indiana Jones! :))))
- Comment by Kamagra on 11/18/10 at 11:04 am
Very interesting movie (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull “).
- Comment by Levitra on 11/18/10 at 11:07 am
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in 1989. I really liked this movie, Super!
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- Comment by san gimignano accommodations on 5/02/11 at 2:21 pm
Sean Connery was in his late fifties when he starred as the senior Jones in the franchise’s last feature, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in 1989.
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If an actor took off his shirt during a movie made in the 1940s, the audience stood a better chance of seeing a spare tire than a six-pack.
- Comment by Dance on 6/17/11 at 11:44 am
I wonder what it would look like to see Liam Neeson portray the role of Indiana Jones.
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