Deconstructing Orlando Bloom

Headlined "Maybe the Stars Have Gotten Small After All," The New York Times published a take-down of erstwhile heartthrob Orlando Bloom. According to the article, his failure to generate box office dollars on his name alone had helped cause the demise of two expensive movies, Elizabethtown and Kingdom of Heaven.

Public Relations Take-Down

The article is interesting because it describes the great difficulty Hollywood studios have in finding and then promoting young actors as the next big thing. We are often told an actor is the next Tom Cruise, but rarely does this happen.

The article chronicles Orlando Bloom's career, telling us exactly when he found his agent, manger, and public relations representative. It lists his salary progression from film to film and shares a back story of how he got a part at the expense of another actor. This has been taboo in Hollywood reporting, for the simple reason that it's impolite to the actor who lost the part.

This isn't the first time the Times' Sharon Waxman has dome some trail blazing in Hollywood reporting. Last year she was publicly reviled by director, David O. Russell, because he thought Waxman provided too may details of on-set life during the shooting of his small film, I Heart Huckabees.

Public Relations Jobs

Hollywood is a small world and you can be sure that most every player in town had read Waxman's Bloom article before the end of the day it was published. A public relations careerist has her job set out for her in recovering from this one. Especially since her name, too, is published in the article.

Source
New York Times