Which ‘Twilight’ star is most likely to succeed — and maybe even win an Oscar someday Twilight and Harry Potter have a lot in common. Too much perhaps, which is probably why I’ve never taken to either. Both are hugely popular movie series based on hugely popular book series, the final installment of which will be split into two different films. Both are fantasy adventures aimed at younger audiences with fans that fall into pretty much every movie-going demographic. Both are led by a cast of two guys and a girl.
But here’s where the similarities end: Nine years and six films into the Harry Potter franchise, it’s three principals — Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson — have yet to become major stars outside of Potter. Neither has Twilight’s lead threesome, set to return June 30 in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Unlike the Potter trio, though, people actually know the names Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart — whether they’ve seen a Twilight movie or not (thanks, in large part, to endless tabloid coverage).
But years from now, long after Twilight has joined Lord of the Rings in the annals of Hollywood, which of its three leads will have gone on to the biggest and best things.
Will it be Kristen Stewart? Playing Mary Lou in the upcoming Walter Salles-directed adaptation of On the Road is a good career move, but she has the aura of an actress destined — perhaps not entirely unintentionally — for an after-Twilight filmography of supporting roles in interesting but smallish films.
Or Taylor Lautner? He’s surrounded by solid, dependable talent in Abduction, the upcoming thriller directed by John Singleton and costarring Sigourney Weaver, Maria Bello and Alfred Molina. But Lautner seems intent on sticking to the Hollywood mainstream, where box-office pull is the only measure of success, and one big hit — or a massive franchise — doesn’t necessarily mean there will be others.
What about Robert Pattinson? My money’s on this one. And not just because he recently confirmed that I’m not the only one who’s counting down the years to the end of the blockbuster Twilight franchise.
It can get a little boring,” Robert Pattinson told the New York Times. “The good news is that the whole thing is done in seven months.”
Unfortunately for Pattinson, that’s only when filming on Breaking Dawn, the fourth and fifth installments of the vampire saga will be completed, but with the fifth and final film not due until the summer of 2012, Twilight will continue to be the bane of Pattinson’s existence for years to come.
On the bright side, by the time part two of Breaking Dawn comes around, Pattinson could be well known for something else entirely. For all three of his upcoming non-Twilight projects, he’s forsaking the Hollywood genre pics in which the studios are no doubt dying to cast him in favor of artier, more prestigious fare. His success will depend less on producing big box-office returns than turning in well-received performances.
I’ve written before about how there’s more to Pattinson than Edward Cullen. In fact, if anything, Twilight is a departure from what seems to make Pattinson tick as an actor. The two highest profile non-Twilight films in which he has had a leading role, this year’s Remember Me and 2008 Little Ashes, were not major successes, but these performances must have convinced casting directors to allow him to step out of the corner that Twilight easily could have boxed him into.
For now, he’s a sort of twentysomething male Nicole Kidman, balancing big mainstream films (the Twilights) with smart, artier fare. But judging from Pattinson’s three upcoming non Edward Cullen roles, once Twilight is over, he’s more likely to go the Kate Winslet post-Titanic route, taking risky acting assignments in mostly period pieces. Who needs to play Kurt Cobain when you’ve got projects like these lined up?
Bel Ami - Release date 2011 Role George Duroy, a rogue ladder climber and manipulator of women sleeping his way through 19th-century Paris in an adaptation of an 1885 French novel
Oscar-nominated costars Kristin Scott Thomas and Uma Thurman as two of Duroy’s conquests
Oscar bait Duroy’s amoral nature. Oscar loves to nominate British actors for playing cads (see Laurence Harvey in Room At the Top, Albert Finney in Tom Jones, Richard Harris in This Sporting Life, Michael Caine in Alfie, Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Daniel Day-Lewis in The Gangs of New York and There Will Be Blood).
Water for Elephants - Release date 2011 Role Jacob Jankowski, a circus veterinarian during the Great Depression in yet another adaptation, this one based on the acclaimed 2006 novel by Sara Gruen
Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated costars Reese Witherspoon as the circus’s star attraction, Christoph Waltz as her husband and the head animal trainer, Hal Holbrook as Jacob Jankowski in his nineties
Oscar bait Jacobs trials and tribulations, which include the death of his parents and a nervous breakdown
Unbound Captives - Release date TBD Role The adult version of a child who is kidnapped from his mother in 1859 and raised by the Comanche Native American tribe in the directorial debut of actress Madeleine Stowe, from a script written by Stowe and her husband Brian Benben
Oscar-winning and Tony-winning costars Rachel Weisz as Pattinson’s mom and Hugh Jackman as the guy who helps her find her missing kids
Oscar bait Comanche, the language Pattinson speaks throughout the film
Aside from the obvious Oscar potential of all three films, the best thing about them is that there’ll be no car chases, no explosions and best of all, no vampires.
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