From Thelma and Louise to the record opening weekend for World War Z , Pitt has charted his own path through Hollywood.
Brad Pitt, Abigail Hargrove, Mireille Enos, and Sterling Jerins as the Lane family in World War Z
Via: Jaap Buitendijk
There is no question that Brad Pitt looks like a movie star. Since Pitt and Pitt's abs and Pitt's smile and Pitt's hair and Pitt's butt first graced the world with their presence in Thelma and Louise in 1991, he's spent 22 years as our global Platonic ideal of male beauty.
What is more remarkable, however, is that since 1994's one-two punch of Interview with the Vampire and Legends of the Fall, Pitt has maintained a prime place within the top tier of the top tier of Hollywood movie stars for nearly 20 years. And he's done it by pretty much bucking every major trend of modern male movie stardom over that same stretch of time — until, that is, he agreed to produce and star in World War Z, which just notched Pitt's best ever box office debut with $66 million.
How has Pitt gotten to this point? First, it's worth taking a look at what's happened to Pitt's peers in the last 20 years.
Between the 1990s and 2000s, Hollywood transitioned from a star-based economy — with movies built around the personas of Tom and Harrison and Will and Bruce and the other Tom — to a franchise-based economy — with movies based around the sagas of Harry and Frodo and Spidey and Optimus and Capt. Jack and the other Bruce. The franchise economy has still been capable of making movie stars; Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr.'s careers were saved after being cast in franchises that fit snugly into their talents for off-beat characters that in the '90s Hollywood did not quite know how to use. But if you were already a big star in the 1990s, the 2000s were brutal.
The Da Vinci Code
Via: Sony Pictures
