Entertainment | movie star The Movie Star Is Dead Movies are driven by ideas now, not people: Peter Bart By Kevin Spak Posted Jun 30, 2011 1:50 PM CDT Copied In this film publicity image released by Universal Pictures, Julia Roberts, left, and Tom Hanks are shown in a scene from "Larry Crowne." (AP Photo/Universal Pictures, Bruce Talamon) The Hollywood Boulevard premiere for Larry Crowne felt like a time warp—here was a red carpet event for a simple romance selling itself on genuine starpower. There’s just one problem: The movie was pretty lame. “Oops, here we go again,” writes Variety exec Peter Bart in the Wall Street Journal. “Star-driven movies seem to be an extinct species as young audiences world-wide obsess over big-concept action movies and digital extravaganzas.” “To studio hierarchs, the lesson is that the moment belongs to the Big Idea rather than the Big Star,” Bart writes, asking—as you knew he would in this kind of article—where today’s Katharine Hepburns and Humphrey Bogarts are. “I would argue that the talent is at hand,” he says, “but the studios don't know how to nurture what was once their most valuable resource. … The obsessive drive is to find the next Spiderman,” not the next Bogart. Read These Next Rare cancer claims a former Super Bowl champ. Sources say Trump's card to Epstein was signed in a strange place. A "horrific" incident killed 3 deputies in East Los Angeles. This is why you don't wear metal in MRI rooms. Report an error