Big Idea of the Week

In a collective brain fart (jinx!), The New York Times and Newsweek both revisit the curse of the Blair Witch Project: How none of the parties associated with the successful indie film have converted that into even more success and fame and power. The Blair Witch Project, a movie one hit wonder. This will be filed alongside the "Oscar curse" (you win an Oscar, then your next film is crappy; examples include F. Murray Abraham, ~~Elizabeth Shue~~ Mira Sorvino, Tommy Lee Jones) and "box office poison" (Jeff Bridges even though he's likable and a sympathetic actor; Penelope Ann Miller, although that could also be called "Remember not to tell everyone you slept with Al Pacino or else you'll be blacklisted").

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By Jen Chung in Arts and Events on January 21, 2004 12:16 AM

Comments [rss]

Mia

Each of the actor's from the Blair Witch project sued and got $5 million each. Take out taxes and lawyers fees, that is still alot of money.

Also, two of the actors, the girl and one of the guys did start getting work on a regular basis. Check IMDB.com.

Jaxx

Mira was pretty good in Summer of Sam

Jen

I'm wrong - Shue was only nominated for Leaving Las Vegas (I was considering putting Nicolas Cage in the post, then I got thinking "Where's Shue?" and got confused)... I put in Mira Sorvino - point still stands.

Ari

No wordgirl - it was for Leaving Las Vegas.

wordgirl

I want to know about that Elizabeth Shue Oscar thing too...was it for Cocktail?

Justin

There is one person who's avoided this curse, and his name is Mr. Cuba Gooding Jr. First, he wins the academy award for Best Supporting Actor for Jerry McGuire and then proceeds to follow it with box office gold! Snow Dogs! Boat Trip! The Fighting Temptations! The man can do no wrong.

Bill

Wait, Elizabeth Shue won an Oscar? For what, Adventures in Babysitting?

alex

Yeah, what the hell was up with that? Are we going to get retrospectives on these guys' progress every five years, like high school reunions?

Speaking of jinx: http://www.two-twenty.net/archives/000141.html

bk

Her name is Marisa Tomei, she played Mona Lisa Vito in the movie (I liked it very much!). For the moment she is acting in Loverboy. She plays the mother (with Kevin Bacon as the father), seen in flashback, to the woman (Kyra Sedgwick) in Loverboy. I haven't heard of any release date yet.

darren

"The Blair Witch Project was a crappy movie when I got around to watching it a couple of years after its release. Couldn't understand what the hype was about."

if you had watched it when it came out the film would have suited the hype a lot more. i rememeber seeing it in america, then going back to seeing it in ireland several months later.. by which time everybody new about it and the elements of surprise/mystery about it were all but gone. so then it became a bit of a let down for people "oh what was all the fuss about" and so on..

dw

betty n. blogger

How could you do this article and not mention the girl from My Cousin Vinny who won and oscar.

vancouver wedding musicians

interesting post... i thought Blair Witch was pretty mediocre, but hype it definitely did get.

ShinGo

The Blair Witch Project was a crappy movie when I got around to watching it a couple of years after its release. Couldn't understand what the hype was about. What I found,much to my surprise, was how enjoyable(and about twice as scary) the sequel, Book of Shadows was, even though every critic ripped it to shreds.

Andrew Phelps

And in a few years, the New York Times can revisit the Blair Plagiarism Project.

Frankenstein

Their kids will say "who's Jay Leno?" much the same way that kids today say "who's Johnny Carson?" or "Who's Jack Paar?"

Greg S.

My friend's wife was in a sketch comedy group with the girl from Blair Witch, none of them were very funny though.

Anyway, at least those guys have Blair Witch to their credit, it's more than what thousands of other aspiring actors in the city will ever get.

They can tell their kids about their season of celebrity and going on Jay Leno.