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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Jun 17, 2020 15:52:30 GMT
DiCaprio famously was offered Boogie Nights and really wanted to star in it but opted for Titanic instead. He has acknowledged that Titanic gave him the commercial star power and pull to dictate the projects he worked on moving forward.
What would his career trajectory have been if he starred in Boogie Nights instead of Titanic? He’d obviously be less of a box office draw but would he overcome that? He’d clearly still have a very successful career but would he will be an upper echelon movie star? Would he still be likely to become Scorsese’s muse? Would he have been more indie for a while or still obviously continue to mainstream? Would his career more closely mirror any of his contemporaries?
Thoughts?
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Post by TerryMontana on Jun 17, 2020 16:07:20 GMT
He would have also made a great career. He's very talented, already an Oscar nominee back then, plus he could have started a permanent collaboration with PTA. In my mind, the right question is: Are there any roles in PTA movies that suit him? I dunno. I could see him in the Master or Punch Drunk Love but not in anything else...
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Post by dadsburgers on Jun 17, 2020 16:13:02 GMT
I think he'd still end up on a similar trajectory. He was never not going to be a box office draw, even without Titanic. Boogie Nights obviously had substantially less wide of a draw, but that didn't stop Mark Wahlberg from making it, and he doesn't even know how to act.
I'd actually prefer that reality where Leo teamed up with PTA instead, would be a great collaboration.
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Post by pupdurcs on Jun 17, 2020 16:36:41 GMT
Probably would have had a similar career to be honest. Maybe the Scorsese muse thing might not have happened to the extent it did (as he might not have the kind of box office clout that made studios demand him for Gangs Of New York), but he'd still get offered a fuck ton of prestige/Oscarbait roles. Look at how big Brad Pitt's career has been for so long, and all the opportunities given to him. For all intents and purposes, he's as big a star as Leo has been. And Pitt never had a Titanic sized mega hit early in his career to justify that. Handsome white guy privilege is a thing amongst Hollywood movie stars Maybe he'd feel more pressured for a big commercial hit and end up cast in Sam Rami's Spider-Man instead of his good friend Tobey Maguire (similar to how Christian Bale felt Batman Begins was important to giving him commercial clout to get cast in othe projects). I think Leo may possibly have ended up in a superhero franchise like Bale, but also like Bale, he'd use it to drive his career in prestige films and roles.
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Post by futuretrunks on Jun 17, 2020 18:11:04 GMT
Probably wouldn't have been much different. Instead of James Cameron, Woody Allen, Boyle, Scorsese, Spielberg, the list would be something like PTA, Mann, Ridley Scott, James Gray, Ang Lee.
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Post by stephen on Jun 17, 2020 18:44:38 GMT
If DiCaprio doesn't do Titanic, he doesn't have the world's highest-grossing film under his belt, so he probably doesn't become the bankable moneymaker that he is today. There is a good chance that he doesn't develop his partnership with Scorsese, whose collaborations began more out of necessity to justify Gangs of New York's budget, which means he wouldn't enjoy the success that has granted him.
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Post by pupdurcs on Jun 17, 2020 19:49:01 GMT
If DiCaprio doesn't do Titanic, he doesn't have the world's highest-grossing film under his belt, so he probably doesn't become the bankable moneymaker that he is today. There is a good chance that he doesn't develop his partnership with Scorsese, whose collaborations began more out of necessity to justify Gangs of New York's budget, which means he wouldn't enjoy the success that has granted him. True, but bringing back the Brad Pitt example....Pitt didn't need a Scorsese. He found plenty of other auteurs to elevate his career, and I think DiCaprio would have gotten more than enough opportunities for great projects without Scorsese. In this alternate universe, maybe Leo strikes up a partnership with David Fincher. I can see him maybe replacing Edward Norton in Fight Club. He'd probably have ended up working with the Coen Brothers and Stephen Soderbergh (who was in the phase of his career, where he would havd been able to cast Leo in commercial hits). I mean, Matt Damon is an inconsistent box office draw, yet he still gets to work with the top guys till this day. There is just a lot of prestige/auteur stuff out there. I don't see DiCaprio missing out. Being Scorsese's muse conferred him more respect faster, but I think he'd have ended up working with most of the top directors anyway in big budget studio projects.
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Post by Good God on Jun 17, 2020 21:29:52 GMT
It's quite a stretch to suggest that Scorsese and DiCaprio wouldn't have struck up a partnership if DiCaprio wasn't in Titanic. DiCaprio obviously worships Scorsese and would have hit him up at some point, and Scorsese has spoken repeatedly about the recommendation from De Niro and how struck he was by DiCaprio's performances prior to Titanic and wanting to work with him.
Here is a quote from him that futuretrunks found a while ago: It would have happened regardless, even if it was not on Gangs of New York.
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Post by quetee on Jun 17, 2020 21:56:37 GMT
It's quite a stretch to suggest that Scorsese and DiCaprio wouldn't have struck up a partnership if DiCaprio wasn't in Titanic. DiCaprio obviously worships Scorsese and would have hit him up at some point, and Scorsese has spoken repeatedly about the recommendation from De Niro and how struck he was by DiCaprio's performances prior to Titanic and wanting to work with him. Here is a quote from him that futuretrunks found a while ago: It would have happened regardless, even if it was not on Gangs of New York. Yeah, Scorsese was interested in Leo cause of Bobby D not cause of Titanic.
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Post by futuretrunks on Jun 18, 2020 2:14:39 GMT
I don't think I replied fully, as this is actually an interesting topic. DiCaprio said that he targets directors he thinks have done great work, as he felt you constantly get burned just hearing promising pitches from neophytes and journeymen when you finally see the finished product. So the ultimate answer is...he'd have worked with whoever among the top directors didn't find him repulsive or uninteresting as an actor.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Jun 18, 2020 4:33:06 GMT
He would have still been a highly touted star... but he would probably not have the same luxury of doing a role every few years for 100% certified big budget prestige flicks.
I feel as though he'd still have the same highs, however he'd probably have a few clunkers (or at least smaller films) thrown into the mix as well.
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Post by stephen on Jun 18, 2020 12:55:45 GMT
It's quite a stretch to suggest that Scorsese and DiCaprio wouldn't have struck up a partnership if DiCaprio wasn't in Titanic. DiCaprio obviously worships Scorsese and would have hit him up at some point, and Scorsese has spoken repeatedly about the recommendation from De Niro and how struck he was by DiCaprio's performances prior to Titanic and wanting to work with him. Here is a quote from him that futuretrunks found a while ago: It would have happened regardless, even if it was not on Gangs of New York. But if Titanic doesn't happen, what makes DiCaprio any different than Wahlberg or Bale or Pitt or any of the other young actors at that time? Titanic set him apart because of how monstrously successful it was, and from that point on, directors and producers looked at him much more keenly over the other guys. Yes, he had an Oscar nomination well before the others but that doesn't always bear out fruit. If Titanic doesn't happen, does he still wind up going from Boogie Nights to The Beach, which got hammered by critics but did modest box-office almost entirely because it was Leo's follow-up to Titanic? Titanic allowed DiCaprio to be choosy and selective with his projects; it gave him the creative freedom that the other guys really never had. But if he never does Titanic, and goes from Boogie Nights (which almost definitely doesn't make the money Titanic did) to The Beach (which likely doesn't make nearly as much as it actually made without the brand of having the lead from Titanic in it), then there's a good chance he never breaks out of the indie mold (or, at least, takes a while to do so). Yes, it's possible he teams up with Marty, but if he isn't the bankable lead they need for Gangs of New York, then it's likely either that film never gets made (becoming another what-could-have-been, or Scorsese winds up making it much further down the line like Silence). As for The Aviator, DiCaprio was attached to that when it was a Disney property in 1999, almost surely because of his Titanic success. If that doesn't happen, then Scorsese probably never makes The Aviator. Which means we probably live in a world where Nolan got to make his Howard Hughes biopic. So if you take away DiCaprio's first two outings with Scorsese, what is there to assure us he gets to work with him the following three times? Bottom line is, whatever talent and skill and success DiCaprio has managed, he owes a titanic amount to that boat movie. It made him more than just a niche indie actor; it made him Leo.
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Post by Good God on Jun 18, 2020 17:55:33 GMT
But if Titanic doesn't happen, what makes DiCaprio any different than Wahlberg or Bale or Pitt or any of the other young actors at that time? The fact that he was a more respected actor than all of them and a bigger star than Wahlberg and Bale. Wahlberg, who was coming off a supporting role in a DiCaprio-starrer, was only really considered for Boogie Nights after DiCaprio turned it down and suggested him for the part. Not to be mean to Bale, but he tried out for a supporting role in Romeo + Juliet and couldn't even land that part. It's also worth mentioning that while Pitt was a bigger star than pre-Titanic DiCaprio, he was also 11 years older and wasn't from the same generation of actors. DiCaprio had already distinguished himself from the likes of Bale and Wahlberg. He'd already broken out of the indie mold with Romeo + Juliet, which made $240M in today's money. I think you're missing the fact that DiCaprio was already the top actor of his generation, even before Titanic. He was the one being offered all of the most coveted roles before they went to the others. There are interviews of Bale as far back as 1996 calling DiCaprio the "top-drawer bloke" and we all know what Phoenix said about DiCaprio always beating out everybody else for parts. Even Norton's breakout role only came to him after DiCaprio turned it down. Just because he wasn't in Titanic doesn't mean he would all of a sudden become an also-ran struggling for parts. He already was the top dog of his generation; Titanic just widened the gap tremendously and gave him unrivaled access to big budget material. Scorsese wouldn't be sitting idly by just because he couldn't make Gangs of New York, and nor would DiCaprio because he couldn't The Aviator. Scorsese would have been developing other projects and DiCaprio would be making his push to get into them. We know Scorsese likes his muses. Which young actor other than DiCaprio, even without Titanic, was better situated to work with Scorsese? It just made him a bigger version of "Leo" and quicker. He would have become "Leo" regardless. Wahlberg, who was in Boogie Nights and was never in DiCaprio's league, ended up becoming a mainstream star. In fact, he became a bigger star than both of DiCaprio's chief generational rivals (Bale and Phoenix). It would be a strange world indeed where DiCaprio somehow didn't become a major star for being in the breakout movie than ended up leading Wahlberg to stardom.
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Post by futuretrunks on Jun 18, 2020 18:19:53 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2020 18:53:17 GMT
Probably wouldn't have been much different. Instead of James Cameron, Woody Allen, Boyle, Scorsese, Spielberg, the list would be something like PTA, Mann, Ridley Scott, James Gray, Ang Lee. Bertolucci, too - I know that DiCaprio was his first choice for Michael Pitt's role in The Dreamers - I think he likely would have done it.
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Post by futuretrunks on Jun 18, 2020 18:59:56 GMT
Probably wouldn't have been much different. Instead of James Cameron, Woody Allen, Boyle, Scorsese, Spielberg, the list would be something like PTA, Mann, Ridley Scott, James Gray, Ang Lee. Bertolucci, too - I know that DiCaprio was his first choice for Michael Pitt's role in The Dreamers - I think he likely would have done it. Yeah, that would have been cool, though I thought Pitt was good.
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Post by Good God on Jun 18, 2020 19:13:12 GMT
Bertolucci, too - I know that DiCaprio was his first choice for Michael Pitt's role in The Dreamers - I think he likely would have done it. I actually really like that movie. Pitt was the weak link for me, and DiCaprio could have elevated it to greatness. Thanks, futuretrunks, for all that information on how in-demand DiCaprio was from top directors, even before Titanic. I had never heard about a lot of that.
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Post by jakesully on Jun 18, 2020 19:32:16 GMT
Damn he would have looked so young in that film lol He still would have had a big career imo. Not sure if Gangs of New York would have been able to be made though I'm just happy he signed on for Titanic and we got what we got.
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Post by mattfincher on Jun 18, 2020 22:19:16 GMT
Nothing changes. Gangs of New York probably becomes harder to get made, but I've sure they still would have found a way. Linking up with Scorsese was the transition point in his career and it still would have happened imo.
As for the Pitt comparisons and pretty boy advantage, a lot of this simply boils down to finding the roles at the right times. Plenty of people who look like Brad Pitt or close enough have had their careers end prematurely. Pitt is a faulty comparison to DiCaprio, not because of any age discrepancy (they did get their breaks at basically the same time), but because he's always had to scramble in his career. He never latched onto somebody as revered as Scorsese (Fincher's rep in the 90s certainly is wasn't what it is now) and he was never considered as good an actor. The fact he's more of a "risk taker" than DiCaprio has always been by necessity rather than design imo. DiCaprio never had periods in his career where people wondered whether or not he could actually act, Pitt had many and had to dig himself out of them by finding the right role(s) at the right times to remain relevant. For example:
'95 (Se7en/12 Monkeys which solidified him as both a box office draw and an Oscar nominated actor after getting blown off the screen by Cruise in Interview with the Vampire)
'99-'01 (after consecutive prestige flops in Meet Joe Black, Devil's Own, Seven Years in Tibet, he gets a string of flashy character parts in Fight Club, Snatch, and Ocean's).
'06-'11 (inarguably the best stretch of his career after silly popcorn fare like Troy and Mr and Mrs. Smith)
And then last year, after a string of films which were either flat out flops (War Machine, By the Sea, Allied), decently reviewed but publicly scorned (Killing Them Softly), or modest but hardly canonical hits (Fury and World War Z) he he gets given a gift from Tarantino in a role that capitalizes on pretty much every one of his strengths and has an awards season which allows him to become super popular again with the GP.
You can't find patches in DiCaprio's career like this. He hasn't gone through multiple phases where he was either consistently criticized for his work or in a string of bad films.
Pitt's career longevity can largely be attributed to either handsome white guy privilege, dumb luck, an acute ability to find the right role(s) at the right times, or some combination of the three. I tend to lean mostly the latter because his work as a producer clearly indicates he has good instincts for strong material. Honestly, based on pure innate ability, he's not in the top end of his contemporaries, but he's been smarter than a lot of them and he'll have a stronger legacy than most of them because of it. He's known how to take advantage of the room for error his privilege has given him without completely exploiting it.
DiCaprio had both the natural ability and the strong instincts to a degree not seen in an American A-lister since Hanks. That's why he's incomparable to anyone in his age bracket. Everybody either isn't considered of the same caliber an actor (i.e. Damon) or the bankable star (i.e. Bale) he is. Breaks for looking pretty only get you so far. DiCaprio always had the requisite talent and career savvy to back it up. And I say this as someone who isn't his biggest fan.
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Post by futuretrunks on Jun 18, 2020 22:30:26 GMT
The Devil's Own is very underrated, both the film and Pitt's performance/accent. Pakula died horribly and way too soon.
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Post by bob-coppola on Jun 19, 2020 0:29:55 GMT
I think it also depends on who replaces him in Titanic. I read somewhere Matthew McConaughey was the #2 pick for the role, which would've been good news for Leo. I mean, the 90's was a time for cheesy rom-coms for McConaughey, right? If he had that Titanic industry clout, he probably would've used it to establish his romantic lead status - and wouldn't steal DiCaprio's thunder as a young auteur-chaser. But if you have someone like Bale - who also wanted to have big name directors in his portfolio -, that could've changed things.
I think it needs to be reminded that, even if Titanic was the biggest movie of history at the time, it's not like DiCaprio was a totally unknown back in '97. Heck, he probably wouldn't have gotten the part if he was an unknown! He was already an Oscar nominee and just the previous year he had Romeo + Juliet, that was a big hit among young girls (the same demographic as Titanic). He had acted alongside with Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep in an Oscar nominated performance from Keaton... And the Raimi connection could've got him the Spider-Man part in the early 00's if he truly wanted a blockbuster hit. Titanic just made him a little more impossible to avoid, imo.
Edit: Oh, and he had worked with De Niro as well before Titanic... so...
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Post by mattfincher on Jun 19, 2020 1:00:42 GMT
I think it also depends on who replaces him in Titanic. I read somewhere Matthew McConaughey was the #2 pick for the role, which would've been good news for Leo. I mean, the 90's was a time for cheesy rom-coms for McConaughey, right? If he had that Titanic industry clout, he probably would've used it to establish his romantic lead status - and wouldn't steal DiCaprio's thunder as a young auteur-chaser. But if you have someone like Bale - who also wanted to have big name directors in his portfolio -, that could've changed things. I think it needs to be reminded that, even if Titanic was the biggest movie of history at the time, it's not like DiCaprio was a totally unknown back in '97. Heck, he probably wouldn't have gotten the part if he was an unknown! He was already an Oscar nominee and just the previous year he had Romeo + Juliet, that was a big hit among young girls (the same demographic as Titanic). He had acted alongside with Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep in an Oscar nominated performance from Keaton... And the Raimi connection could've got him the Spider-Man part in the early 00's if he truly wanted a blockbuster hit. Titanic just made him a little more impossible to avoid, imo. Edit: Oh, and he had worked with De Niro as well before Titanic... so... Would McConaughey getting the part have changed the main flaw of his career up until the McConaissance, and now again post-Interstellar, which is that he doesn't know how to consistently pick good scripts? I dunno. Maybe he'd have more opportunity, but I still think he'd have gotten trapped where he's been for long stages of his career.
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Post by bob-coppola on Jun 19, 2020 2:37:03 GMT
I think it also depends on who replaces him in Titanic. I read somewhere Matthew McConaughey was the #2 pick for the role, which would've been good news for Leo. I mean, the 90's was a time for cheesy rom-coms for McConaughey, right? If he had that Titanic industry clout, he probably would've used it to establish his romantic lead status - and wouldn't steal DiCaprio's thunder as a young auteur-chaser. But if you have someone like Bale - who also wanted to have big name directors in his portfolio -, that could've changed things. I think it needs to be reminded that, even if Titanic was the biggest movie of history at the time, it's not like DiCaprio was a totally unknown back in '97. Heck, he probably wouldn't have gotten the part if he was an unknown! He was already an Oscar nominee and just the previous year he had Romeo + Juliet, that was a big hit among young girls (the same demographic as Titanic). He had acted alongside with Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep in an Oscar nominated performance from Keaton... And the Raimi connection could've got him the Spider-Man part in the early 00's if he truly wanted a blockbuster hit. Titanic just made him a little more impossible to avoid, imo. Edit: Oh, and he had worked with De Niro as well before Titanic... so... Would McConaughey getting the part have changed the main flaw of his career up until the McConaissance, and now again post-Interstellar, which is that he doesn't know how to consistently pick good scripts? I dunno. Maybe he'd have more opportunity, but I still think he'd have gotten trapped where he's been for long stages of his career. Exactly my point. Besides that brief McConaissance era, McConaughey never seemed to have the same ambition as DiCaprio, Bale and even smaller guys like Gosling. I guess all he ever wanted was to be a movie star, and I believe that's what he would've used the Titanic fame for. Maybe he'd make better movies than the ones he ended up making, but not the kind of work DiCaprio did. BTW, according to IMDB, other than McCa, the studio considered Johnny Depp, whilst Bale auditioned and was turned down. Jared Leto was also offered the part but reportedly turned it down. Tom Cruise, Macaulay Culkin, Ethan Hawke and Brad Pitt were also in the running, but I'd take that with a grain of salt. I don't think Cruise really considered it, and I can't see Culkin playing the part. But yeah, Depp, Pitt, Bale or Hawke landing that part could've hurt DiCaprio's trajectory, as they'd go for the same parts.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2020 2:46:59 GMT
Bertolucci, too - I know that DiCaprio was his first choice for Michael Pitt's role in The Dreamers - I think he likely would have done it. I actually really like that movie. Pitt was the weak link for me, and DiCaprio could have elevated it to greatness. Thanks, futuretrunks, for all that information on how in-demand DiCaprio was from top directors, even before Titanic. I had never heard about a lot of that. Oh, I love the film. And Pitt tends to resemble DiCaprio which is likely what lead to him landing the part. I can certainly understand why DiCaprio would turn down such a sexually explicit role post- Titanic - his profile is just way too high then/now, and he really seems to dislike that kind of attention, but I'm sure he would have relished the opportunity to work with Bertolucci. And he was fearless in his indie days - Total Eclipse and The Basketball Diaries more than prove that IMO.
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