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Zendaya-Palooza box office weekend pushes ‘Dune: Part Two’ to $700M WW; ‘Godzilla x Kong’ to half billion as Legendary Warner pics count $1.2B WW
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- Authors
- Anthony D'Alessandro
- Published
- Apr 27 2024
- Word count
- 510 words
Only three movies have grossed over 500m since Barbenheimer: Wonka, Dune, and Godzilla x Kong, all Warner Bros films. For a studio that was faltering for a while they’ve sure had a comeback.
Also Zendaya has a pretty impressive PR team which is spinning Challenger’s weak opening weekend as a positive. For example No Hard Feelings opened similarly with weaker reviews, lower marketing budget, and Lawrence doesn’t have the social media following that Zendaya has.
Is it just me or is Zendaya not a particularly good actor? I've seen her in The OA, the MCU Spider-Man films, and Dune. I found her acting fairly flat in all of them—and I really wanted to like her in Dune. It seems as though she's playing mostly the same character—maybe herself?
As far as Dune goes, I had similar issues with Chalamet.
What is all of the fuss? Am I missing something?
Could it be less about the actors themselves, and maybe just the "naturalistic", understated acting style that Villeneuve encourages in his films that you may not like, and so are blaming the actors for?
Just look at Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, Sicario, Enemy, Prisoners; All of them feature absolutely incredible actors capable of portraying incredibly wide emotional ranges, but in those films they're all acting sort of "flat" (AKA understated) too. I personally like that style, but to each their own.
Oh, no, I love Villeneuve's films: Arrival, 2049, and both Dunes. I appreciated Prisoners. I still stand by that the acting of those two, Chalamet and Zendaya, failed to impress—but particularly Zendaya.
Blade Runner? Gosling and de Armas gutted me.
Arrival? Amy Adams coming full circle at the end, same.
Fair enough. I will admit that I haven't been particularly impressed by Zendaya in anything yet. However, Chalamet has done a great job in several other movies, particularly in Wonka (which I think is super underrated), and The King as well. I'm a sucker for musicals, and historical dramas though, so I may be a bit biased. ;)
I had to look the word gutted up and google tells me it means "bitterly disappointed or upset". Does that mean you found their acting very bad? Or that you thought it was so good that it affected you emotionally?
Not a native speaker 😅
Ah, of course. British/American colloquialism, I believe.
Slang for "brought me to tears".
You'd think that someone who studied cultural anthropology and often finds fascination with idioms that translate poorly would be mindful of their use of slang. Oops.
Yeah Zendaya’s pretty bad. I haven’t seen Challengers and her performance is acclaimed in that, but I have a feeling it’s inflated from critics being partial to Luca’s movies. I’ve described Zendaya’s performances as “I’m too cool to act and show emotion.” Which is why she struggled so much in Dune 2 when the character required to show anger.
Chalamet has limited range as well, he’s been riding Call Me By Your Name’s goodwill for a while. But at least he's tried to branch out a little with doing a more comedic performance in Wonka. I actually think Tom Holland is a better actor but he got stilted by Spider-Man as well as his non Spidey projects being mostly duds. His performance in The Devil All The Time was great though.
Holland is a solid actor. Even just for his MCU films, his combination of comedic timing and his intentionally adolescent attempts to manage pain, loss, and grief have impressed me. Even just his body language after Downey/Stark "knights" him an Avenger.
I still haven't seen Wonka or The King. Noted.
I think Zendaya and Kristen Stewart might have gone to the same school for mopey teen actors. ;)
I disagree about Chalamet though. IMO, he was quite good in Wonka and The King, and showed he has some decent range in those. I do agree about Tom Holland being a far better actor overall though.
Yeah. I can’t really explain Stewart’s critical success and her still being an indie darling. Her performances come from her being a charisma void while Zendaya’s I think are a result of her being too image conscious for an actor. She’s scared of not seeming cool.
It’s what makes someone like Charlize Theron actually cool, cause she looks like a model but goes all in for her performances regardless of the way she looks.
I think it is an issue with the script and director than the acting. The romance plot they tried to shove into Dune: Part 2 felt rushed and forced. It happened completely different in the book, but whoever adapted the book to a movie tried to come up with a new love story that doesn't fit.
Also, Chani (Zendaya) isn't even supposed to be angry at Paul (Timothee Chalamet) at any point. Chani is supposed to be a strong supporter and even understanding of Paul's duties as a political figure even if she felt hurt momentarily. The whole Chani trying to be an independent woman and opposing Paul may make sense to modern American sensibilities, but the source material is about an alien culture where that kind of defiance doesn't make sense.
I don't think the issue is that Zendaya or Timothee Chalamet suck at acting. The issue is that they modified the plot to try to give it mass appeal to modern audiences. If certain scenes feel out of place or the acting isn't convincing, it's because the script was botched from the start.
Imma be real with you, I don’t care that the movie diverted from the book. I never care when a film adaptation doesn’t adapt the book exactly. I think it’s unrealistic to think a movie won’t change things.
Villeneuve is also great with actors, and he did the best he could with the talent given.
I understand that movie adaptations have to deviate from the book to make the story work for a different medium, but my issue is that they modified the motivations of the characters. It's one thing to have to skip some material or modify a scene to make it work without excessive narration, but to completely change the personality and goals of characters is way too far.
There was no southern fundamentalists or northern non-believers in the book. Everyone was a believer and waiting for the chosen one to arrive. The whole plot line of the northerners saying that a foreign colonizer shouldn't be their hero was not at all part of the original story.
Jessica was actually afraid of Paul and wanted him to not play into the Fremen prophecies in the book, but in the movie they tried to make her an evil person trying to force Paul to trick the Fremen into thinking he's the messiah. Paul is the one who was constantly trying to become the leader of the Fremen against the wishes of his mother.
They didn't show how Paul was actually a formidable fighter and trained the Fremen in new fighting techniques. The movie made him seem fairly wimpy or on par with the Fremen. The Fremen were supposed to be knowledgeable about surviving in the desert and strong fighters, but made stronger with the techniques Paul and Jessica taught them.
Chani also never gets angry at Paul. She is a very loyal partner and on his side 100% of the way in the book. The disagreements between them in the movie felt unnatural because it was unnatural.
A movie adaptation of a book should attempt to change as little as possible to make the original story work for film. If you wanted to tell a different story, then tell a completely different story. Don't take a story that people love and think you can make it better. It's very unlikely that someone is going to be able to write Dune better than Frank Herbert and Dune: Part 2 shows that they can't.
Why?
Why does this have to be a rule? Stories aren’t a computer program written to be executed and return a single output. There’s nothing sacred about the pages of a novel.
Why should we deny generations of storytelling techniques, where narratives are retold and altered to suite the audience and the medium and recounter’s tastes? Like musicians before the digital age, performing variations and creative interpretations instead of getting trapped in a Spotify definitive MP3.
I would go as far as to say that some of the best adaptions take the core themes and ideas and tell them completely differently — consider Blade Runner, Children of Men, Jojo Rabbit, etc. In contrast, you can do a really good job with a more scene-by-scene adaption, and still produce something that's not as good as the original. Good Omens, to me at least, is a good example of how just telling the same story is often a bit disappointing. It's a good TV show, don't get me wrong — David Tennant and Michael Sheen work brilliantly together — but it's the sort of TV show that falls out of your head once you've finished it. In contrast, there are so many examples of scenes or ideas from the book that have stuck with me for years.
There are definitely some exceptions to this rule — Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings both kept largely to the books and were still (mostly) great film series in their own right. But if you're going to adapt a book into a new medium, I think I'd much rather you think about how to adapt the themes more broadly, rather than trying to replicate each plotline exactly.
I take it you've never seen Euphoria. Her performance in that show is great and there is plenty of emotion.
I’ve seen bits and pieces. And everything I’ve seen from it fits into what I described, mostly monotone speeches. Crying and shouting every now and then a good actor it does not make.
I’ve also seen Challengers now and I’m equally unimpressed. Except now with good actors in O’Connor and Faist surrounding her it just makes her limits more obvious.
I haven't seen Zendaya in anything else, but I think the problem in Dune Part 2 lies in the directing, more than the acting. I say this because I watched Dune Part 2 again last night (before I saw this post) and came to a realization while lamenting how fucked up it is that they made Chani deviate from the book:
In the scene where Paul is given his nickname, Zendaya is directed to basically look a bit incredulous or mistrustful, but to ultimately accept him (this on the path of Paul becoming Fremen). Chani is sitting down in this scene.
Later, Chani and her friend are skeptical of Paul because they sense the ties of the prophecy to the workings of the Bene Gesserit. Once again, they're sitting down in this scene.
In the scene where Paul drinks the stuff and things happen, Chani helps fulfill the prophecy. In the process she also has a realization about the emotions she has for Paul (i.e. she was worried he was dead). She's kneeling over him in this scene, then walks out angrily.
In Paul's triumphal scene as self-elected leader, Chani again starts to walk out, only to be grabbed by Gurney Halleck, made to sit/kneel, then to show her character's disapproval over the way that Paul is taking power, Chani finishes walking out.
In the scene with the emperor, Chani's patiently anxious over the fate of Paul. She senses the danger to her home, and him, as the fight becomes serious. Then Paul does his thing with the emperor and Chani is visibly upset, but trying to put on a strong front, as befits her people ... and walks out again.
As far as a person's expression, none of these emotions have to look identical, but what really helps differentiate these emotionally is the body language and how the character interacts with the environment -- the props, how they move, and how they transition. Yet Chani was either sitting or, in a couple cases, standing and then walking out in protest. That's not a lot of opportunity to demonstrate a range of acting abilities and I think that's one of the things that sits uncomfortably with me about the film. The director(s) left a lot of the emotions unspoken, for the actors to demonstrate, but didn't actually give them a lot of room to do that.
I think one of the smartest scenes is when the camera goes to Margot Fenring, played by Léa Seydoux (talk about another actor with flat acting, both here and in the James Bond films), with her hands at her waist (the proper place for a polite lady), and she tightens her hands protectively. Because they're talking about the baby that's just been conceived. It's a great, very brief way to show and tell all the things that need to be said about this person -- they know physiologically that they have a baby, the right baby, and they're protective of this for reasons that are opaque to the viewer (because she's not just a mother, but a Bene Gesserit.
So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that as much as I liked these films, I don't think all the actors were directed very well. More could've been done to make their characters be more interesting. Compare this to the fairly flat performances of many of the characters in The Matrix, where there was a lot more body language, props, camera angles, et cetera to convey suspense, betrayal, and other emotions (everything from the way Trinity embraces Neo early on to the way that Morpheus' stiff attitude gives way to a fluid mind and body inside the matrix).
I think the second dune movie sucks. The the first movies didn’t exactly follow the book, but the second movie really departed from the book. It’s honestly as if they took a generic Hollywood plot line and pasted dune characters in it.
It's one thing to cut/combine parts, change ordering, simplify elements, sometimes you have to make compromises for the screen. It's something else entirely to rewrite the characters from scratch.
I suppose they just wanted to convert the IP into cash and figured it would work better as a more vanilla hollywood story.
How much you want to bet they tone down the tragic cautionary tale Paul in later installments? Too ambiguous for mass market.
Did we watch the same movie? The whole point of the changes to Chani's character is to emphasise the tragedy of Paul's decisions: he gives up on the values that they share together early on in the movie in exchange for the ability to take power, and thereby avenge his house and family. Ultimately that choice will cost him everything, but in having his and Chani's relationship grow more organically, Villeneuve shows that cost at the smaller scale as well.
I would say that the original Chani character's devoted support does a better job of emphasizing the tragedy later in the story by subverting expectations for the central love arc.
It's a fine movie btw, not an easy series to bring to the screen. I just don't love major character changes that don't seem necessary or even particularly useful.
I've never read the books but I was getting genuinely bored during the 2nd movie. They could have easily shaved 20-30 off of it by cutting so much of the "is he the prophet" rants involving Stilgar. And Walken was so miscast as the Emperor...when I first read it I thought it was going to be such an inspired casting choice and Walken breaking from his usual mold...only to be sitting there in the theater expecting him to say cowbell at some point
The book is so much better. I’m not even someone who reads that often and I couldn’t put it down. It’s about 850 pages but I read it in 4 days.
The movie is more of a Hollywood action blockbuster, but the book is so much more about politics and an underdog story.
So i have a weird way of putting this.
Jack Nicholson, certainly later in his career, played....basically Jack Nicholson. Unlike say Daniel Day Lewis, who you might not even recognize, you KNOW when you see nicholson.
Still, he had some range, but generally you cast him because you had a Nicholson part. Sure he's in mob movies and rom coms (both as a subversion and a serious role) but you know what they're going for.
I feel like Zendaya has kinda become that....but it doesn't work as well? Like Jack she's got a style and I think she's good at it. But it feels like they're just shoving her in everything, and the fit isn't always there? Further unlike Jack, I don't think there's as much range on it? There's 100% a difference between her as MJ and her as Chani, but I don't think it feels different enough compared to the aforementioned Jack examples (The Departed and How Do You Know being the ones i'm thinking of).
It's sort of a self inflicted type casting, and I'd love to see her get something waaay out of left field and see what she could do with it, but I also get not fucking with something that's working.
I just posted here about my thoughts on Zendaya and the directing in Dune Part 2. But you raise an interesting point about how certain actors are either type-cast, or seem to keep falling into certain roles that are acted the same.
I don't know how it is in Zendaya's case, but it's always interesting to me how a lot of westerners view Jackie Chan as a "funny" good actor. Whereas in China he played (edit: many, not all; thanks cloud_loud) serious roles. It was just that Hollywood's racism wouldn't allow Chan to play anything but a comedic sidekick/partner with martial arts skills. It's been like that for a lot of actors over the years, as Hollywood, agents, and the other parts of the mechanism churn to produce actors who meet mainstream requirements and don't rock the boat too much.
Zendaya obviously has an agent who can get her into high-profile films, but maybe she doesn't have someone standing up for her as an actor or guiding her in how to prove her breadth of acting skill (if any)? Just a thought.
Uh, a lot of Chan’s roles in his own films are comedic. Comedy has always played a role in his action.
True, not all of his roles in China were serious. I shouldn't have implied that. Many of his martial arts films are action-comedy. Many films he was in before he was really famous were serious, but he also had serious roles in the Police Story series, if I'm not mistaken.