Critical End!

Apparently there’s a yearly poll that asks theater owners to vote on which actors generated the most business for them that year.  Here are the results for 2009:

1. Sandra Bullock
2. Johnny Depp
3. Matt Damon
4. George Clooney
5. Robert Downey Jr.
6. Tom Hanks
7. Meryl Streep
8. Brad Pitt
9. Shia LaBeouf
10. Denzel Washington

So, according to theater owners, if you slap any of these ten names on a poster, you’ve got a hit on your hands.  Now I’m just a simple country blogger, but it seems to me that if Sandra Bullock can bring in $300 million with a cheesy football flick all by herself, then Sandra Bullock and Johnny Depp could easily pull in $600 million.  I mean, we’re talking twice the bankable stars.  Throw in Matt Damon?  That’s a cool $900 mil.  George Clooney pops in?  Oh, I’m sorry, I got distracted by this BILLION DOLLAR BILL!  Where’d the other $2 million go?  I left it as a tip at the Olive Garden.

It’s an obvious scheme, so why hasn’t Hollywood put all ten of these heavy hitters in one blockbuster, creating the mathematically best and most profitable movie of all time?  Because no writer has been able to dream up one story that could contain them all…until now!

Here’s the pitch:  Sandra Bullock is a MILFy, but lonely librarian at the Library of Congress, whiling her ho-hum days away by flipping through old newspapers and pining for the love she’s never known.  Will she ever meet her swarthy soul mate, the man who exists only in her wildest rubber-cement induced fantasies?

YES!  He’s Johnny Depp!  A constantly drunk pickpocket from the turn of the century who emerges from the pages of one of the library’s many books when Sandra Bullock accidentally reads aloud an ancient magical incantation from John Hancock’s diary!  You can bet the two don’t see eye to eye, what with Johnny Depp’s abrasive behavior, outdated attitude toward women, and flatulence problem (Only thing more bankable than Johnny Depp?  FART JOKES.)  But with a few sardonic quips and a few more hilarious costume montages, the duo just may be able to get along, and dare I say it…get it ON?

But just as things start to heat up, the whole situation gets complicated when Matt Damon (a down on his luck Library of Congress janitor who’s SO smart if he’d only apply himself) enters the picture.  Matt Damon finds out that Johnny Depp is his great great grandfather!  This leads to proof that Matt Damon’s father was the one behind the big Library of Congress murder scandal a couple years back, so he’s got to hide the evidence to save the family name.  He tries to curse Johnny Depp back into the book, only to accidentally open a temporal rift that sends the trio back in time.

And who should they meet but the Everley brothers as brought to life by George Clooney and Robert Downer Jr.!  Matt Damon is still trying to kill Johnny Depp in comical ways, but everyone’s distracted when George Clooney and Robert Downey Jr. ask for help writing the lyrics to Bird Dog. They’ve only got a day until the big concert and if they don’t perfect it, they’ll never impress their pal Budd Holly (David Cross in an unrelated and non-bankable cameo).

Of course, our heroes pull it off, but just as Sandra Bullock and Johnny Depp go in for a celebratory kiss, they’re interrupted by a passing Hollywood producer, none other than Tom Hanks.  Tom Hanks is a big city guy with small town roots and a secret penchant for dirty Japanese comics (this part not shown, just for Tom’s character work) who is looking for his next big star.  And Sandra Bullock is it!

“Baby, you’re gonna make me on average 300 million dollars!” he remarks!  Sandra is whisked away to Hollywood to star in major motion pictures, but she soon realizes that everyone there is a huge phony, not like Johnny Depp, the magically incarnated pickpocket for whom she still longs.

The only person Sandra Bullock really connects with is her wise old makeup gal, Meryl Streep, who’s been around the block once or twice and may even be able to teach our mousy heroine a thing or two about love (NOTE:  Lesbian scene between Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep probably a bad idea.  Film anyway and save it for the DVD bonus features).  But when the two decide to play hooky for the day and drive out into the country for an impromptu female empowerment road trip, they never expect to have a run-in with creepy drifter Brad Pitt!

Brad Pitt wants something from Sandra Bullock.  And it sure isn’t a library card. He wants to tell her she’s the only one who can stop the alien invasion that only he knows about!  Crazy?  Sure he’s crazy.  CRAZY LIKE A FOXY BRAD PITT! Sandra Bullock isn’t buying Brad Pitt’s tall tales, or his handmade hemp chokers (product tie in?), but things get a little too real to ignore when a giant metal spaceship lands, crushing Brad Pitt’s smelly trailer.  Sandra Bullock looks up in horror to see hundreds and thousands of aliens emerge from the ship.  And they are ALL Shia LaBeouf!  Some of the Shias are wise and grandfatherly, while some are street tough and slangy, but all of them like pizza and skateboarding.  (Does EACH Shia bring in its own $300 million?  The answer is yes of course!)

The head Shia tells Sandra that Brad Pitt only got half of the story right.   Yes they are aliens, but they aren’t invading.  All they want is the incredi-shard, a long lost piece of their homeworld that drifted to Earth millions of our years ago, though it’s only been three Shia-cycles.  They don’t know who on Earth has it.  All they know is they’re going to need the toughest damn cop we’ve got to track it down.  Enter Denzel Washington whose wife was killed by the incredi-shard bandit several years ago while visiting the Library of Congress.  With the aliens’ help, he’s finally got the lead he needs to reopen the case and make the bastard pay once and for all.

Sandra Bullock and Denzel Washington spend a lot of time staring pensively at computer screens, scrolling through old records, and chasing shadowy figures into alleys only to lose them.  Finally, they track down the culprit!  Seen only in shadow, they chase him through an abandoned warehouse until they have him cornered.  Dramatically, he turns around to reveal his identity…IT’S YOU!  Yes, thanks to James Cameron 3D face scanning technology, you the audience were the killer the whole time!  Smash cut to a stylishly late title card and roll the opening credits.  That’s when the movie really gets going!

The ball’s in your court, Hollywood.  Just send me a $20 billion advance to finish up the script (a mere 1/10000000 of the film’s projected earnings) and we’ll be in business.