Denouement: George Clooney Isn’t a Box Office Star, and That’s Fine

Over the weekend "The Ides of March," George Clooney's fourth film as a director, opened to a disappointing $10.5 million. Consequently, the reaction by Hollywood journalists was Hmmm, this Clooney fellow seems to be having trouble at the box office these days, huh? It would have been more surprising a response if it hadn't happened for the last several movies Clooney's starred in or directed. By now, we should all be used to the routine: Clooney puts out a movie, it does OK-but-not-amazing business, and then everybody freaks out because Clooney's star is on the decline. Isn't it about time that we all simply face facts? As talented and successful as he is, George Clooney isn't a movie star in the way we expect him to be. That's not his problem. That's ours.

My feelings about all this are probably more complicated than yours. For a year, I worked for an old production company of Clooney's. (This was before he teamed up with Steven Soderbergh for Section Eight.) I met the man a total of (I think) three times, and he was nothing but gracious and friendly, although I don't pretend to have any insights into who he is as a person or what makes him tick. But it was a time when he was transitioning from "E.R." to features, and so I was on hand for the release of "Batman & Robin" and "The Peacemaker." This was not an auspicious start to his feature career. But right as I was leaving, "Out of Sight" came out. This was much more promising: a smart, sexy thriller that really suggested his leading-man potential. It made about $38 million -- less than "Batman & Robin" or "The Peacemaker" or even 1996's "One Fine Day -- but it was the best thing he'd been associated with at that point.

I bring this up because, somewhere along the way, we've seemingly started assuming that Clooney is a major box office titan. But why? Look at his track record: He's been in a grand total of five movies that have made over $100 million domestically. One of those was "Batman & Robin." Three of them were "Ocean's" movies. The other was "The Perfect Storm," which came out 11 years ago. And yet when each new Clooney movie comes out, there's this general concern that Clooney has somehow lost his commercial mojo. I don't think that's accurate. Instead, I think he's a good actor and a celebrity fixation who occasionally has been in really big movies.

This isn't to say that Clooney is some capital-A artist who's only interested in the furthering of the cinematic art. The guy probably wants hits as much as the next A-lister. But for far too long box-office watchers have monitored his films as if they're tentpoles. Probably the most striking example was 2007's "Michael Clayton," which contains one of his very best performances. Because the reviews were so good, because he'd just had success with "Ocean's Thirteen" and because he'd recently won a Best Supporting Oscar actor for "Syriana," there was an expectation that "Michael Clayton" was going to be a huge movie. And then it wasn't, even though it earned seven Oscar nominations, including ones for Best Picture and Best Actor. Nonetheless, "Michael Clayton's" underwhelming commercial performance inspired people to wonder if Clooney's marquee value had slipped, rather than recognizing this was a moody character-driven piece that should never have been considered a potential smash in the first place. Folks thought it was going to be a star-driven action-thriller, and that's not what it was. Why blame Clooney for that?

That's been his predicament ever since. He does a great film like "The American," which very much parades its European art-house trappings like a badge of honor, and people who just want to see Clooney shoot guns get frustrated. He turns in a wonderfully nuanced performance in "Up in the Air," an early 2009 Oscar favorite, and then folks seem unhappy when it only grosses about $84 million: Isn't Clooney a big star? More and more, it seems like he is and he isn't. He is in that he can help open a movie or get it green-lit. He is in that he's a beloved industry figure who has five Oscar nominations -- three for acting, one for writing, one for directing -- under his belt. But he isn't in the way that folks like Johnny Depp or Will Smith or Tom Cruise are, in which just about every project they do is constructed to bring in as much money as humanly possible. How can people look at "The Men Who Stare at Goats" or "The American" and think that that's the thought process going on inside Clooney? If it was, he'd be the star of "Real Steel."

Of course, the guy's had his flops. "Leatherheads" sunk like a stone. Despite being released over Thanksgiving weekend, "Solaris" made a shockingly small amount of money. And while "The Ides of March" is the sort of adult-skewing film that usually has decent legs, it hasn't started off strongly.

But rather than wringing our hands each time one of his movies underperforms, maybe it's time to consider a new normal for Clooney. He may have that star power that translates to Oscar attention and worldwide fame, but he's not a box office star. He's not that kind of actor, unless he happens to do another "Ocean's" film. But he doesn't seem particularly interested in being that kind of star -- if he had been, he wouldn't have walked away from "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." You can question the guy's creative choices -- I'm more than happy to have that conversation -- but it's probably time to retire the notion that Clooney is somehow supposed to be our brightest Hollywood A-list star. That's a good thing; it acknowledges that he doesn't just want to make mindless blockbusters and that he's interested in pursuing different projects no matter their commercial value. There are a lot of big names who are happy doing "Real Steel." Personally, I'm really grateful there's at least one who isn't.