The career of Margot Robbie: how convention and commercialism corrupts the careers of today’s great actors
There is a huge imbalance in the current media landscape—high-budget IP projects and commercial blockbusters are favoured over everything else, with gargantuan marketing campaigns that obliterate everything else.
While independent cinema is still alive, it is struggling to be seen by most audiences, with a devoted cult of cinephiles single-handedly keeping the art form alive. But while this is something that could be resurrected, it is floundering as a result of the A-list actors who make choices that directly harm the future of the medium, opting for commercialistic projects that both kill cinema and their chances of having a career with a modicum of substance.
Perhaps one of the best examples of this is Margot Robbie, the breakout Australian star who has somehow managed to avoid every opportunity to make something meaningful by aligning herself with some of the most offensive directors and projects being made today.
The beginnings of her career were extremely promising, working with Martin Scorsese at the age of 22 and going on to tick a number of Academy Award-winning auteurs off her bucket list, collaborating with the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and Damien Chazelle. During this time, she has made some truly great work, with her portrayal of Nellie Leroy clearly demonstrating the depths of her talents and explosive screen presence.
But ever since the creation of her film studio, Lucky Chap Entertainment and the colossal pink project that it is now most known for, it seemed as though the success of the unexpected hit altered her career trajectory in a rather strange way. The studio turned its focus to more IP-driven projects and commercial projects, buying the rights to turn other brands and products into movies, with a Monopoly and Sims movie on the way.
The studio was also the leading force behind Emerald Fennell’s 2023 calamity, Saltburn, pushing for her self-described ‘twisted’ vision and simultaneously corrupting cinema of any meaning through her vapid and desperately ‘edgy’ stories. But it seems as though Robbie is a huge fan of this kind of cinema, even going so far as to star in Fennell’s latest film, a sordid adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
These types of vapid projects serve no purpose other than to earn money, either pulling people in through intrigue at turning a product/brand into a story or through pure rage bait. Both are killing cinema in equal measure, with Robbie now becoming the face of trashy commercial projects and superficial stories, leaving the kinds of projects that could do justice to the entirety of her talents. But now, many great actors are letting go of independent cinema and meaningful stories, sticking to the status quo by adhering to the commercial norms that are slowly turning the art form into nothing but roller-coaster pictures.
Robbie is tied to upcoming projects like an all-girl remake of Pirates of the Caribbean and Tim Burton’s remake of Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman. Neither are original stories, signifying a new era in which these types of projects now dominate the box office.
While her earlier career saw her star in projects of more substance (even if very film bro-ey), all of her upcoming projects feel like hollow cash crabs, with the actor showing very little interest in doing anything unconventional and instead playing it safe by leaning into this wave of predictable mainstream projects. These films might drag wider audiences into the cinema, but they only add more nails to the coffin of innovative cinema, continuing to waste her talents on projects that will disappear into the endless slate of popcorn pictures.
