When Katherine Heigl denounced Knocked Up as "a little sexist" in print and withdrew her name from consideration for an Emmy Award, she challenged her pretty-girl persona and was labeled ungrateful and hypocritical.
But despite rampant speculation that her career would suffer, she has continued in her role as Izzy Stevens on Grey's Anatomy, and her last film, 27 Dresses, earned $159 million worldwide. The lesson: If you make people money, you can get away with being a maverick in Hollywood. If you don't, well, that's another story.
"If the work can stand on its own, none of it will matter," says Lori Levine, CEO of Flying Television, a talent brokering firm. "The American public can't be fooled."
Take Oliver Stone. He's cemented his outsider status with a rebellious nature and a penchant for high-minded, controversial films. His work has provocatively depicted American culture, politics and business with Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July and Natural Born Killers. But his latest film, W, grossed just $10 million during its opening weekend.
W was financed primarily from overseas funds because American sources were skeptical of the film's political bent and profit potential. The crew had to ask 25 oil companies to use their rigs as a filming location before they found one company who agreed to make its rig available for filming.
As film financing constricts and studios become increasingly mindful of profit margins, there's less opportunity for stars who want to create work that stands outside of the mainstream. "All major studios are up against quarterly profits. There's less of an ability or an inclination for an executive to take a chance on a movie," says screenwriter Stanley Weiser. "People who are outside the mainstream have a much harder time today than they've ever had."
The screenwriter, director, producer and actor Spike Lee is another good example. Known as much for his joints as he is for his mouth, his films, such as Do The Right Thing, Malcolm X and Clockers, have been credited with pushing racial and stylistic boundaries. But studios grew tired of what Lee had to offer in the 1990s, leaving him scraping for dough to bankroll his films. By making a hit of Inside Man, Lee brought himself back inside the fold for a while.
Weiser, who wrote W, says he has never had to compromise his projects in the interest of getting them made. But he recognizes that relationships in Hollywood are traded in commerce. "Hollywood friendship is based on making money together, having made money together or making money in the future. Hollywood friend is an oxymoron in my mind," says Weiser.
Successful mavericks--from Madonna, Sean Penn and Mel Gibson to Kanye West and Angelina Jolie -- have another thing in common. Besides being outspoken, they're adept at manipulating publicity -- both positive and negative -- to boost their fame, allowing them to work on their own terms.
"Celebrities are selling their own brands because it affords them more freedom and they can drive the machine," Says Levine.
Still, one thing trumps all else: box office success. Michael Moore's a good example. He's turned controversy into commerce, with documentaries that have explored American health care, the Iraq war, President Bush and gun ownership. But when his 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11 grossed over $200 million worldwide--though it had a production cost of $6 million -- that's when he became a Hollywood darling. He'll earn a reported $20 million to do the sequel.
"In Hollywood, everything becomes magnified, and everything's in the public domain," says Michael Sitrick, CEO of Sitrick and Company, a strategic communications firm. "But if you're going to produce the next Spiderman movie, and you're going to make studios hundreds of millions of dollars, people will be more tolerant."
