Shia LaBeouf’s Incredible History of Movie Sequels
Written by Garrett Hargrove
He’s annoying. He gets in seventeen words where most people get in five. There’s nothing incredibly funny, appealing or interesting about him. And his latest movie is the 9th highest grossing movie OF ALL TIME! On imdb.com, he is listed as the first actor in the sequel to the 1987 hit Wall Street, called Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. Apparently the title Wall street 2: Subtitle That Will Make You Think This Movie Is Fake was vetoed. So why producers insist on casting him to revive their franchises? Is he a cash cow? Does he have a deal with the devil? Or has the talent pool just dried up that much in Hollywood? Let’s examine all that is Shia Labeouf and look at four sequels that invested in him and what that did to their franchises (After the break):
Shia was born an only child with his parents not wishing to go 0-2. The name Shia is Hebrew for “gift from God” and the surname LaBeouf is a corruption of “le bœuf”, the French term for “the ox” or “the beef”. The Beef From God has a family history that sounds like something out of an old National Lampoon magazine or Mel Brooks movie:
* LaBeouf’s maternal grandfather, a Polish Holocaust survivor who shared his first name, was a comedian who worked in the Borscht Belt of the Catskill Mountains and sidelined as a barber for the Mafia.
* LaBeouf’s paternal grandmother was a Beatnik poet and lesbian who associated with Allen Ginsberg.
* None of the above were embellished or made up by me. Wikipedia may be lying, but it never stopped me from using them as a source either.
The Heavenly Beef got his start working with Disney. Thankfully this was before Disney absorbed Marvel and could cast him as Peter Parker. On his show “Even Stevens”, Shia showed off his ability to be everything. The cool kid and the dorky kid. The fast talked and the clueless one. The hunk and the nerd. (All of this is speculation because why the hell would I watch “Even Stevens”?) He parlayed that Disney TV success into two movie Sequels, Dumb & Dumberer and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. They felt, seeing his versatility, that he could be whatever those respective franchises needed to propel them to a James Bond-like longevity.
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
* imdb rating: 4.7
* Box Office Gross: $100M
* Part 1 imdb rating: 5.5
* Part 1 BO Gross: $125M
* Analysis: Shia made this movie 20% worse and cost them $25M at the box office. Sure they lost Bill Murray, Tim Curry, Sam Rockwell, Tom Green and LL Cool J. But they got a hot Demi Moore in a bikini. If you were offered Demi or the other pupu platter of people who don’t look good in a bikini? I think the loss in imdb rating and Box Office returns have to all be attributed to Shia, even though, off the top of my head I cannot remember what role he played.
Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Llyod
* imdb rating: 3.3
* Box Office Gross: $26M
* Part 1 imdb rating: 7.1
* Part 1 BO Gross: $127M
* Analysis: Shia made this movie 50% worse and cost them $100M at the box office. At one point Trey Parker and Matt Stone were attached to this film, proving that the project should have been a success. They even pulled in Eugene Levy, Cheri Oteri, Mimi Rogers, Luis Guzman, the dude who would eventually be in Hostel, “Scarlett” from Gi Joe: The RIse of COBRA and New Line mainstay Lin Shaye. This film seemed destined for greatness. All eyes fell upon Shia LaBeouf. It would be another five years before he could kill another sequel…
The Charlie’s Angels franchise died. The Dumb and Dumber franchise died. In 2003, Shia turned two $100M franchises into distant memories. Not a single sequel was offered to Shia. He resorted to working on non-sequels like I, Robot, Constantine and Holes. It seemed as though Shia’s fifteen minutes were up when he voiced a computer generated penguin opposite the dude who played Napoleon Dynamite that only returned $58M of its $85M budget.
Then… a legend came knocking to return Shia to his comfort zone.
Legendary Director Steven Spielberg could have cast any hot young actor he wanted as Indiana Jones’ kid “Mutt”. He chose franchise wrecker Shia LaBeouf.
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
* imdb rating: 6.7
* Box Office Gross: $317M
* Part 1/2/3 imdb rating: 8.7/7.5/8.3
* Part 1/2/3 BO Gross: $230M/$175M/$197M
* Part 1/2/3 BO Gross Adjusted for Inflation: $632M/$384M/$354M
* Analysis: The film was awful. “South Park” lamented Spielberg raping their childhood memories of Raiders with this film. It is the lowest rated film in the Harrison Ford series. Adjusted for inflation, it was the worst performing film at the box office out of all of the films. But it was still the third highest grossing film of 2008 (behind Dark Knight and Iron Man). Even though it was a disgusting, dismal attempt at an Indiana Jones film, it wasn’t a total financial disaster. Then came Shia’s big score…
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
* imdb rating: 6.3
* Box Office Gross: $400M
* Part 1imdb rating:7.4
* Part 1BO Gross: $319M
* Analysis:It was reviled by critics. It had a convoluted plot that was more complicated than it should have been. It had blatantly racist characters and was half an hour too long. And it sits as one of the top 10 grossing films of all time (US only). The film’s story got worse from the first one. They lost Jon Voight, that hot Australian chick, Anthony Anderson and Jazz from the first film. They even killed Optimus in the sequel. With all that attrition from part 1 to 2, how did they increase the box office gross? How do you grow a franchise when you lose so many of the tools you used to make the first one so successful? When your biggest tool is Shia LaBeouf. The Sequel maker.
The Sequel Cancer label was officially shed by Shia and the sequels are pouring in. Even films that have no reason to make a sequel like Wall Street have enlisted Shia to bestow his golden touch upon their franchises.
But how did this happen? What happened in that stretch from 2003 to 2008 that allowed Shia to return to the sequel to the big stage? There are a few things:
He Honed his Ability to yell “No”
Bad Boy
Shia attained a bad boy image by getting arrested*, which made people think he was tough and could act opposite giant f’ing robots.
*-Was arrested for Trespassing on a Walgreens. He just needed his fox of “As Seen on TV” products.
Blackmail
The big one was this. During his hiatus from sequels, Shia got in with some high profile stars. From 2003-2008, Shia acted with the following people:
* Will Smith
* Sigourney Weaver
* Jon Voight
* Uma Thurmon
* Patrick Stewart
* Rachel Weisz
* Tilda Swinton
* Anthony Hopkins
* Laurence Fishburne
* Demi Moore
* Ashton Kutcher
* William H. Macy
* Elijiah Wood
* Helen Hunt
* Robert Downey Jr.
* Carrie Anne Moss
* Jeff Bridges
* Zoey Deschanel
AND
* The Dude Who Played Napoleon Dynamite
While lying low, keeping an Eagle Eye out on his costars, another side venture, not publicly linked to Shia sprang up. After lying in the weeds, gathering dirt on all of the above celebrities, 2005 would see Shia help launch a site that would strike fear into the hearts of his fellow celebs and give him a golden ticket to whatever role he wanted in whatever sequel came about…
Perez Hilton
Shia, with his deep cache of blackmail on the biggest stars in Hollywood and Napoleon Dynamite, demanded the right to be in any sequel that came through Tinseltown. So Hollywood jumps to his every demand hoping that his stockade of social ammunition stays out of the public spotlight. This information may land me on that infamous site hellbent on destroying celebs. But I feel it is my civic duty to bring this information to light.
Obvious Theory
Producers feel that people like watching him and will exploit that until the next awkward half teen-half man arrives and takes Shia’s place. Shia will trail off into oblivion and we will bemoan this new actor with the same fervor.