Will the glorious era of J-Law soon come to its bitter end?

But the studio paid her 20 million, obviously not for buying her acting ability but for her star power.They only paid her $20 million because of the wage gap.

If she were a man, she'd make 2x as much. Oh wait, Chris Pratt was only paid $10M for the movie...

Well still, because of her star power and obvious box office draw in movies that do not involve ensembles casts or existing franchises to build off of, she should have been paid $40M!

Good analysis xu-l. I've also noticed when the movie goes south, the actor is always to blame for the failure of the film. That is the catch-22. The studio is basically saying, we are going to pay you all of this money, but in return you have to deliver, and if you don't deliver, than perhaps you don't have the box-office appeal you once did. It takes a lot of moving parts to make a film, yet it seems to me the majority of the weight lies solely on the actor's shoulder to make the film a box-office success.

I don't know what you think about this, but it seems to me that the studio's mindset is if they can put in an actor with box office appeal, it will automatically save the film. How many cases has this hypothesis failed? In some cases that has worked, but it doesn't automatically mean the actor will turn the film into box-office gold. The greatest grossing films of all times didn't have any big name stars:

1. Star Wars: Force Awakens. Star Wars has a huge following, so you don't need any big name stars.
2. Avatar. Didn't have any big name stars.
3. Titanic. No big name stars at the time.

How and when Sony made the decision is its commercial confidence. I can only make some guesswork:

1. When the screenplay was written, it seemed like an interesting story and would make a profitable film, so the studio rushed into the auction to buy its right;

2.After the right was required, they found the story maybe good for a low budget film or a TV soap opera, but for a high budget film, it lacked enough excitement in the plot to draw large amount of audience in to generate enough box office.

3.At this point, they could choose to rewrite the screenplay, or discard it. But instead they chose to hire two most popular actors to draw audience in.

Maybe a lot of people think the decision was stupid, but from their point of view, it may be a wise choice.

If they chose to hire someone to rewrite the screen play, it would still cost them a lot of money, and there was no guarantee of box office success.

If they chose to hire a pair of popular actors, it would cost them large amount of money but they at least had some guarantee of the lowest box office. Even if the number might not make the project profitable(The highest expectation of box office was profitable of course), it would still reduce the risk of suffering heavy lose. So they chose to this option.

Too many signs showed that Sony had no confidence on the movie's success before it was released. There was almost no advertisement, only 1 trailer and no planed sequel. Obviously the studio was saving every penny to cut the cost to make the project profitable, or reduce the possible lose.

So far, the film has made 185 million and it still has many weeks run to make more. The film hasn't been released on Hollywood's largest foreign market, China, where Guardians of The Galaxy grossed 96 million. If Pratt still has a faction of star power like that, the studio may still be able to earn their investment back or even make it profitable.

So, perhaps they did have made a wise choice.

It seems like J-Law not only failed to understand what pay gap was, but also failed to understand the film which made her popular.

If the CEOs of those hollywood studios could speak to J-Law as freely as Haymitch to Katniss in that attic in Catching Fire, they would have told J-Law:

You (like us) are a highest paid employee in this industry now. That means everyday, the tabloids are gonna dig your out and broadcast the details of your blunders. Every day, your private life becomes theirs. From now on, your job is to be a distraction, so people forget what the real problems (like pay gap) are.....😃😄

Considering the vicious reviews and piling on about the movie, the Box Office has been surprisingly strong - indicating that it was not a big mistake to cast Jennifer with Pratt for this film. We'll have to wait an see.

Releasing a space movie a week after the Star Wars opening was always going to depress BO anyway.

"Considering the vicious reviews and piling on about the movie, the Box Office has been surprisingly strong"

It's funny but I normally tend to agree with critics, and on sites like metacritic or rotten tomatoes tend to agree more with the critics' score than the general public score. But not this time, on this film.

I became aware that critics on this one were mixed with the average somewhat below average, while the public seems to like it a good deal more than the average of the critics.

I did see Mark Kermode's generally positive review of this film before I saw it, decided to see it. He made note of the fact that he knew going in that other critics had problems with this film. But he said he didn't share those concerns.

The impression I get is that some of the critics could not get past what they saw as the moral issues with this film. One even called the basic premise sexist. I didn' see it as sexist, and felt the film was about more than the moral issue. It was really a conflict between the moral issue and what I saw in the set up as the existential imperative pressing upon the Jim character, wrapped up in the psychological pressure, the back and forth of the decision, and not the least the regrets and doubts.

It is I think pointless to not like this film because, in the eyes of some, it may not have condemned Jim enough. Or was to ambivalent about his choice. Not sure why too many of the critics got stuck on that aspect.

Critics often see a film only once, and enter it with expectations that come from some sources other than the general public. Whatever the dynamic involved, I found it interesting that I simply could not share the view, the negative view, of the average of the critics.

I tend to go more with the audience scores than the critics. I always found it a safer bet for me. I just saw Assassins Creed not too long ago and it was a good movie. Love the game as well! It got horrible reviews on RT but scored high with the audience.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Yes, I agree that the response of the critics seems unduly harsh and reveals a group mentality that reveals one should rely on critics they trust more than on a consensus from sites such as RT. One should go back to the pre-RT days or avoid reviews altogether if one wants to form his/her own opinion.

I really enjoyed the movie and thought it was by far the best low rated movie I have seen.