The Poster Memorabilia blog

An All-Atar Cast for the Ages

Three carpets, three movie stars, and one heist that made them all look easy.

By an anonymous Hollywood insider

Have you ever noticed that having an all-star cast doesn't have the same pull it once had? Just because you have big names in a movie, it doesn't mean it will be a hit. At times, casting such ensembles would make it a flop, almost as if having more than three big names in a film at a time were a curse.

Gone are the days of Ocean's Eleven (2001), where the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Andy Garcia, and Bernie Mac guaranteed a box office hit. The movie came out when most of these stars were at their peak, and seeing them together on screen was the most exciting thing ever.

How could you not love a film that had this much star power? Everyone had something to look forward to here. Men loved the heist genre, which saw a slight revival with this release, while women fawned over the male leads, especially since Clooney, Pitt, and Damon were considered the hottest men in the movies at the time.

It's no surprise that Ocean's Eleven turned into a commercial and critical success. The film received rave reviews and earned a whopping $450.7 million worldwide. It also had Hollywood in a chokehold, as people were excited to see real movie stars back on screen again.

I've seen a good many of these stars in person, and they really are dazzling in real life. It almost felt impossible how good-looking they were, both on and off the screen.

✦ ✦ ✦

My jaw actually dropped when I saw George Clooney at the New York premiere of Gravity in 2013. He looked like an action figure come to life, and I mean that in a good way. Everything about his face was so well-defined, it looked like it was molded by an artist.

I felt the same with Brad Pitt when I saw him on the red carpet at the 2014 Academy Awards with Angelina Jolie. Even though I wasn't a fan of his hair that night, he still looked good next to Jolie, who's a screen goddess in her own right.

“I've always thought early-2000s film actors were our modern-day Old Hollywood movie stars.”

The fact that they shared the screen in Ocean's Eleven made it clearer why the movie was a hit. I've always thought early-2000s film actors were our modern-day Old Hollywood movie stars. Clooney had Cary Grant's gorgeous charisma, while Pitt replicated Marlon Brando's sex appeal.

And Julia Roberts, who I saw at the 2019 Golden Globes, had an elegance similar to Katharine Hepburn. She was also so nice to sign my Ocean's Eleven movie poster, despite how busy she was posing for the cameras on the red carpet.

Besides these three, I met the rest of the cast through the years and had them sign my movie poster. They stunned me just as much as Clooney, Pitt, and Roberts did, and they reminded me why I loved the film in the first place.

I hope Hollywood can still make a movie with an all-star cast of this magnitude, and I hope it becomes a hit.

Some things you watch. This one you keep.

Guaranteed authentic for life • 90-day returns, any reason