Kristen Stewart is still doing some promotion for Still Alice, which has opened in a few more theaters on the back of Julianne Moore’s Oscar nomination (it’s doing pretty well in the specialty market, too). She gave an interview to Yahoo to support the movie and she said some really nice things about Moore—whom she’s known personally for years—and the experience of working with actresses like Moore and Juliette Binoche, and if you’re a KStew fan it’s a nice read. She really sounds like she’s gained some perspective on The Twilight Years and is in a good place, personally and professionally.
But she also said something that made me raise my eyebrows—she wants to do a Marvel movie. Specifically, she namechecks Captain America, but she said she “loves watching those movies” and would like to do something other than “be ‘Kristen Stewart’ in a different movie”. As much as I like Stewart, though, I can’t imagine a world in which she’d actually be happy in the Marvel machine. Over the last couple years she’s gotten her groove back and it seems in large part because she’s NOT at the epicenter of the entertainment industry. If she thought being in Twilight was a chore, Marvel, at this point, is even bigger.
My measuring stick for how big a movie can get was always Return of the King, the biggest premiere/crazy town thing I’d ever seen. Then I saw the plans drafted for the Age of Ultron Travelling Pony Show and nearly swallowed my own tongue. Even New New Star Wars will have to make an effort to top it. And it’s not even Disney asserting their dominance—most of the press plans are deriving from specific requests from territories around the world, and so far the only place not asking for an Avenger is Antarctica, and if penguins could write I’m pretty sure they’d be on the list, too. So I try to imagine Kristen Stewart, who never adjusted to center spotlight, as part of that circus and I just can’t do it. She wouldn’t make anything like Twilight money and she’d have twice the press obligations and ten times the nerd scrutiny. So Kristen, unless there’s a specific character you’re just dying to play, I’d let the comic book thing go and try to ride the next big wave in studio movies—video game adaptations.
