Any of you just get sick and tired of this crazy celebrity crap?

Seems like a movie can't get greenlighted in America unless some big shot movie star is in it, period.

Where are the new faces? Where are the new talents?

I can't remember the last time I saw a new face in a Hollywood movie that wasn't little more than an extra (minus Watanabe in TLS). There are sooo many great actors out there waiting to get uncovered, but studios would rather pay some hot shot 20 million. They could trim their budgets by a HUGE percentage and get some new blood in there.

It's ridiculous when you think about it. Arnold's paycheck for T3 was over 20% of the total cost of the movie. Same for all these big names.

I don't know. Colin Farrell got a ton of starring roles before anybody knew who he was.

Big name actors and actresses draw more people to the box office = more money for studios = more money for studio execs.

yeah, i'm tired.

look at what Lord of the Rings did with fairly low key people

This isn't really that new a concept, is it? I mean, studios have always banked a lot of films on the draw of at least one big(ger) name in their films. Hell, studios used to maintain stables of contract actors and actresses whom they could carefully build up into names through appearances in magazines and the like.

I'd like to see some lesser-known talent get a chance too, but this just tends to be the nature of the beast.

Unfortunately, what you say is true. What I love seeing is a small movie hit it big, and the actors in the film become almost instant celebrities whereas they weren't as well known before. A good example of this is L.A. Confidential: when it did very well at the box office people started noticing Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, and they moved on to bigger and better things.

A good example mentioned above is the Lord of the Rings films. The actors are all household names now. 5 years ago if you had asked the average Joe who Viggo Mortenson was he would have no idea; now everyone knows who he is. However, once these actors finally hit it big, they become part of the process that Gyno mentioned in his post. That's just the way it is, I guess.

If you look at the really big movies...the have mostly small name actors...LOTR...SW...etc...

Once the rest of the WWII vets die, all the 'Nam vets will be there soon. Dont worry.

This is one reason I LOVE foreign movies. Very often I'm seeing an actor for the first time and it's easier to forget they are acting and not really their character. I do enjoy movies with big name actors at times, but I think I prefer just as much to see a movie with someone new to me.

There certainly are a lot of no name actors making it big, as posters above have said. Nothing's really changed.

Yeah, I hate Ben Afleck too.

Affleck's da bomb!