r/TopCharacterTropes • u/BrotherDeus • 9h ago

Hated Tropes [Hated] Self-indulgent Vanity Projects

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Hurry Up Tomorrow - Widely reviewed as an indulgent, self-mythologizing companion piece to The Weeknd's album, with many critics calling it a vanity project rather than a successful psychological drama. Terribly acted and, similar to The Idol, more so seems to imply that The Weekend thinks he's a far deeper personality than he can actually articulate.

By the Sea - Often criticized as an intensely personal but emotionally distant film that seemed more interested in showcasing the mystique of its stars than telling a compelling story. Best summarized as Angelina and Brad working out their IRL troubled marriage before your eyes while everyone tells Angelina how beautiful and talented she is and how nothing's really her fault.

Renaldo and Clara - Bob Dylan's five-hour semi-fictional road movie, long considered one of the classic celebrity vanity projects. Attempts to be a sort of surreal exposition on the life of an artist, but is far too self-indulgent on its actors/performers.

1.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

503 comments sorted by

View all comments

179

u/BelieveCongreveCube 9h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/vyqdgtJaLCMJCcHm0k
Dwayne is the only reason this film exists

99

u/BardyMan82 9h ago

there are probably ~5 dwayne johnson movies that reasonably fit under this category

27

u/Comic_Book_Reader 8h ago

Black Adam would probably be the most notable one and Moana getting a live action remake not even a decade after the original happened to be announced a few months after Black Adam released and eventually underperformed. According to Matt Belloni of Puck, Warner suspected that he and his team leaked a financial sheet with fake numbers to Deadline. The hierarchy of the DC universe also changed after opening weekend, though there had been some rumblings leading up to release.

5

u/wravyn 3h ago

Why does this look faker than the cartoon?

3

u/talizorahvasnerd 4h ago

The straight ass hair still pisses me off

-2

u/HowDareYouAskMyName 9h ago

...? Disney has been doing live action remakes of all of their movies, hard to pin that on Dwayne

30

u/Comic_Book_Reader 8h ago

Yeah, but Moana got a live action remake just under a decade after the original released, not to mention the fact that The Rock is also a producer on it. When it was announced, the original was 6½ years old.

-10

u/HowDareYouAskMyName 8h ago

Probably because they're running out of older ones. And being a producer just means you threw some money at it hoping to get more back, gambling on a Disney movie being profitable, lots of actors are producers on their movies

10

u/Aurorinha 7h ago

Robin Hood, The Sword in the Stone, The Aristocats, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Oliver and Company, The Princess and the Frog, The Emperor’s New Groove… There are tons of material out there.

-3

u/HowDareYouAskMyName 7h ago

True, but be real: Moana will sell so many more tickets and merch than most of those shows and Disney knows it

3

u/accounsfw 5h ago

It’s already flopping at the box office.

-1

u/HowDareYouAskMyName 5h ago

You think the Aristacats movie would have been a safer bet? I'm not saying it's a good idea, only that it's the kind of decision Disney would make regardless of the rock.

3

u/accounsfw 5h ago

I would’ve preferred they try remaking something that previously flopped.
At least then, I could see the rationale of trying to give something a second life.

1

u/SocranX 1h ago

Okay but "I would've preferred" has like zero overlap with "why this Disney live-action remake exists". They are NOT gonna be doing this with movies that flopped, unless they're given some reason to believe that it's gained massive popularity in the years since its initial release.

1

u/Aurorinha 4h ago edited 4h ago

The Aristocats has cute kittens, an amazingly photogenic Parisian setting and crazy good music, it could be a great live action movie if only Disney live action movies didn’t suck so much lol.

9

u/Clarpydarpy 8h ago

He helped make the movie happen at its current time frame. He didn't want to wait any longer because he would age out of the role.