popular thinking

BRANGELINA ATTEMPTS TO SAVE MOVIE FROM THEMSELVES: When I went to see Revenge of the Sith a weekend or two ago (was it that long ago?), the audience audibly groaned and booed the trailer for Mr. and Mrs. Smith. In today's paper, I offer up a possible explanation. To wit...

They call acting make-believe.
But actors sometimes fall in love for real while paired on a movie set.
That onscreen chemistry can work wonders at the box office - unless, of course, the leading man and leading lady have cheated on their real-life loves in the process. Then they desperately hope viewers make believe that the adultery didn't happen.
So Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie deny their dangerous liasions at every turn. You might think they're trying to spare Jennifer Aniston, Brad's soon-to-be ex, further heartache. You'd be wrong.
Brangelina just doesn't want a scarlet letter attached to their new film, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which opens nationwide on Friday.
If Hollywood's A-listers have learned anything over the years, it is this: Adultery plus tabloid hype does not always equal box-office magic.

Gigli (2003)
Couple: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez
Ah yes, the heady days of Bennifer, version 1.0. Note to Cris Judd: When an actor pays for full-page ads in the trade magazines declaring how wonderful your wife is, she might not remain your wife much longer.
Here, Affleck plays a thug who falls for a lesbian assassin during a kidnapping mission. Chasing J. Lo. turned out to be not quite as hee-haw-hilarious as Chasing Amy.
Gigli was the first film in Razzie Award history to sweep in all of the worst-film categories.
In its third week, the movie dropped from 2,215 locations to 73. It earned $6 million, nowhere close to its estimated budget of $54 million.

Proof of Life (2000)
Couple: Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan
In the plot, Ryan's husband is kidnapped while on the job in South America. Crowe comes to save the day, but Ryan isn't so happy about that.
Ryan and Crowe found ``life'' offscreen, and she and hubby Dennis Quaid split up. Audiences had a difficult time separating the reality from the cinematic fantasy.
The movie bombed, earning $32.6 million versus an estimated budget of $65 million.

Dumb & Dumber (1994)
Couple: Jim Carrey and Lauren Holly
In one of many memorable scenes, Carrey's character finds out the odds of hooking up with Holly are "more like one in a million.'' His onscreen reply: "So you're telling me there's a chance?''
His offscreen reply: What if I'm earning $20 million per movie?
Carrey divorced wife Melissa Womer within a year, married Holly in 1996, then divorced her in 1997. Messy? Certainly. But the movie was a $127 million hit.

Made in America (1993)
Couple: Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg
How do you follow up a long-running megahit sitcom like Cheers? One way is to divorce your wife of 16 years to make whoopie with Whoopi. But that whole blackface routine went over about as well as the couple's movie, a supposed comedy that had Danson playing a car dealer and unwitting sperm donor parent to Goldberg's teen daughter.
Sorry. We forgot to laugh.
The movie still managed to earn $44.9 million.

Cleopatra (1963)
Couple: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor
The granddaddy of all adulterous affairs captured on the big screen. It helps that at the time, this was the most expensive movie ever, with an estimated budget of $44 million that translates to more than $250 million in today's dollars. Add in more than four years of production, two other directors, a handful of screenwriters, a $1 million paycheck for Liz and note that Liz almost died during filming and that the movie flopped with $26 million from the box office (subsequently earning up to $57 in later re-releases) - and you still remember that Liz and Dick's affair trumped everything.

Related: If loving you is wrong...this film will be a bomb (Boston Herald)