Where Oscar Leads: Jamie Foxx
By Daron Aldridge
July 3, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Until his banner year in 2004 with Ray and another praised performance opposite Tom Cruise in Collateral, Foxx had rather humble, lowbrow beginnings. He made his living in the world of television with the occasional failure at the box office. With a run on the Wayans-fest sketch show In Living Color from 1991 to 1994, Foxx created fittingly over-the-top characters such as Wanda, the ugliest woman in the world. It probably chaps Jim Carrey's hide that he didn't become the first In Living Color alumni to win an Oscar. Sorry, Jim Carrey but apparently you are the unfortunate exception to the aforementioned rule for biopics.
Between his Wayans employment and starring in his own sitcom, creatively titled The Jamie Foxx Show, Foxx offered the world a movie that popularized a slang term as the title of a movie that no one saw. Of course, that film was 1997's Booty Call with Tommy Davidson.
Wisely and probably due in part to his sketch comedy background, Foxx was part of minor successes with him in minor roles. Oliver Stone's football drama Any Given Sunday did respectable business but Foxx was the fifth billed person between James Woods and LL Cool J. Two years later, he lent his support to Will Smith's Ali in 2001 and was praised for the performance.
Unfortunately, in between Any Given Sunday and Ali, his man-on-the-run Enemy of the State rip-off, Bait, cost Warner Bros. $35 million but only yielded $15.3 million. Clearly, the label "box office heavyweight" was not even close to applicable to Jamie Foxx.
Then along came his works in 2004, which gave him access to not only the exclusive club of Leading Actor Oscar winners but he is also one of only a handful of people to be nominated for lead and supporting role Oscars in the same year.
Likely in late February 2005 in post-Oscar euphoria, the studios began rabidly salivating at the prospect of a new marquee name that would cost the fraction of Will Smith's salary but could be revenue and acclaim magnets. I mean, how many Oscars does the Fresh Prince have? That's right...zero.
Foxx had two films already in the can at the time of his win and both reflected his earlier career station of working as a supporting player. His first trip in theaters following his Oscar was the bomb that was Stealth. In late summer of 2005, this catastrophic piece of cinema was unleashed on theaters. True to its name, no one noticed that it was there. For a movie with a reported budget of $130 million (that was also reportedly lowered by about $70 million to save face), Stealth earned a minute $31.7 million. Foxx was probably pleased that his minor supporting character was killed off rather quickly, so the studios realistically couldn't market it too much as "starring Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx." Why'd he do this misfire? Maybe he could just "blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol."
Not nearly as embarrassing was the November 2005 release of the Gulf War memoir Jarhead. Jake Gyllenhaal and his Santa hat were the stars here and Foxx's role was essentially an extended cameo. Despite the movie dealing with some topics that were a little too fresh with the second Gulf War raging on in 2005, the Sam Mendes film almost made back its $70 million budget with its $62.6 million gross. Once again, crediting or blaming Foxx for the success or failure of either film would be woefully unjustified.
Also in late 2005, quite possibly inspired by his work on Ray and the friendship he made with the man himself before Charles' death, Foxx released an R&B album titled Unpredictable. Ultimately, the album would become a double platinum success with an estimated two million copies sold. By adding hyphenates "singer" and "musician" to his resume, Foxx appeared to be taking the sting out of the box office shortcomings.
To test his true box office mettle in the aftermath of Oscar, you turn to Michael Mann's reinvention of his own invention, 2006's Miami Vice. The production was plagued with location issues and delays but with filming that began in June 2005, Foxx came on board as the newly minted Oscar winner and the clear byproduct is the hefty $10 million paycheck he cashed for the role. Between Foxx's and Colin Farrell's salaries, we know where $20 million of the $135 million budget went. The rest must have been spent on cars and boats but sadly, no crocodile named Elvis.
The star wattage of Foxx (who was top-billed here) and Farrell couldn't propel Miami Vice past a gross of $63.4 million. While not as big of a disaster as Stealth, this was not pretty and Foxx figured prominently in the film and the marketing, so his Oscar gold was not magically box office gold.
The next test in 2006 proved to be decidedly more successful with the award-chasing Dreamgirls. With transparent aspirations for mimicking Chicago from a few years before, the thinly-veiled Motown/Supremes film earned a trough of money with $103 million and scored eight Oscar nominations but not one for Foxx. Despite the fact that Foxx's little gold man meant that he was again top-billed, Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Hudson were the obvious centers of the story. Two singers by trade in a movie about singers is simple math to get to the reason people showed up at theaters.
In 2007, the tales of his box office struggles continue to play out like Groundhog Day as The Kingdom was released, with Foxx as the above the title star. The movie centered on an FBI team, led by Foxx's character, trying to find those responsible for an attack on U.S. soldiers and Saudi Arabian police. Foxx's second trip to a Persian Gulf-set film was even less successful than Jarhead. The Kingdom brought home $47.5 million but cost $80 million.
In January 2008, Foxx joined forces with Robert Downey Jr. for The Soloist, a film that was directly in the feel good wheelhouse of his Oscar-winning role as Ray Charles. The biopic of homeless cellist Nathaniel Ayers hit the right tone for the type of roles the audiences liked Foxx to portray. When it was finally released in early 2009, it seemed to be met with apathy. As expected, Foxx was praised for a solid and moving performance but audiences quite simply didn't seem interested in seeing Iron Man hanging out with a homeless man. It banked $31.3 million against a $60 million budget.
The bright side of Foxx's professional career is clearly his ventures into music. In December 2008, he released Intuition, his follow up to 2005's Unpredictable. It has spawned a couple of hits, including the song "Blame It" with the lyric referenced above that I hope you picked up on.
At this point for Foxx, his post-Oscar film career is embodying the adage, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results." It might be time for the studios to realize that the best use of Foxx's talents isn't by placing him as the lead but rather in a sizable role in ensemble films because unfortunately, where Oscar has led Jamie Foxx is down road littered with box office failures.