Movie stars' stock crashes

Paying a movie star $20 million is supposed to be a high-percentage bet, a way of giving studio chiefs a reasonable chance at getting a good night's sleep in the weeks before a film's release. But there's a growing tension today between the kind of material movie stars want to do and the kind of material studios want to build their slates around. Having spent years honing their craft and building an image, most stars want a dramatic challenge -- they don't want to stand in front of green screens for three months.

With the adult drama being a genre that's almost dead at most studios, it's increasingly hard to find a common ground where stars can jump into challenging material that studios see as marketable material at the box office.

Studio chiefs know all too well how perilous it can be to try to find material that satisfies movie stars' desire to stretch their acting skills while still serving the studio's need to turn a profit. I'd look like a hypocrite to criticize Warners for making "Body of Lies" after endlessly complaining that studio slates are dominated by so much popcorn schlock. But where is the middle ground? Warner Bros. chief Alan Horn gently chided me Monday for being the first to call when the studio has a failure with a challenging film.

"I know we get criticized for doing mindless popcorn pictures -- and that's fair to a point," Horn told me. "But this was our opportunity to step out and try to do something bold, that's more than the easily digestible fare that all studios, including us, tend to do. 'Body of Lies' had a great script, a classy director and a really interesting take on our country's role in world events."

Horn took issue with my theory that the actors, not the studios, want to make challenging fare. "We all wanted to do this film, starting with [studio production chief] Jeff Robinov and myself," he said. "This wasn't the actors coming to us, begging us to do it. We believed in this movie. We weren't saying, 'Oh, we've protected ourselves by having the comfort of a couple of movie stars, so we'll come out OK.' Russell and Leonardo were cast because they are great actors who happen to be movie stars, not the other way around. They were right for the material."