The unlikely sequel Kirsten Dunst would love to star in, but only for the money
She may be one of the most famous actresses of her generation, but Kirsten Dunst has spent the last few decades of her career making smaller, independent films with less commercial appeal, and as satisfying as it might be to do work that is fulfilling, she hasn’t forgotten the value of being in films that people actually see.
There aren’t many child performers who make the transition into being great adult performers, but Dunst pulled off the task in one of the most impressive career transformations of the last several decades. Although she was a child breakout star in Interview with the Vampire and later a teen idol in The Virgin Suicides and Dick, she went on to be highly selective in picking roles that were important to her while working with interesting directors.
The actor may have been the heartthrob for an entire generation with her performance as Mary Jane in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man franchise, but it’s not an experience she’s been interested in replicating, especially given the dangerous stuntwork involved. The Spider-Man films were such hits that Dunst was essentially able to dedicate her time to smaller, independent projects that allowed her to do the type of acting she hadn’t been able to showcase before.
Films like Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled may not have reaped the same profits as Spider-Man, but they did prove to the world that Dunst was a more than capable actress. Unfortunately, the audience for these films became a bit slimmer based on the changes to the theatrical marketplace, in which it is incredibly challenging for non-blockbuster films to reach an audience.
Dunst received her first Academy Award nomination for The Power of the Dog, but the film had only a limited theatrical rollout before it debuted on Netflix, and last year, she turned in a highly moving performance in Roofman that has since been slept on when the film didn’t meet financial expectations.
Although she appears to be content with her choices, the fluctuations in her popularity are not lost on her, and in an interview with Town & Country, Dunst mentioned that she’d like to be in the sequel to A Minecraft Movie, and even joked, “Maybe I can just make a movie where I don’t lose money?”
While her comments may have been in jest, she did mention that her interest in appearing in a more family-friendly, commercially appealing film was based on a desire to make something that her kids could enjoy. If anything is to be said about Dunst’s last few films, it’s that they are not appropriate for a young audience; Civil War is incredibly violent, The Power of the Dog is very emotionally complex, and even Midnight Special has some high-concept ideas that may be lost on younger viewers.
A Minecraft Movie was a success that seemed to take Hollywood by surprise, as few insiders would have predicted that the video game adaptation from Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess would become a success of nearly $1billion, outgrossing expected blockbusters like Jurassic World: Rebirth, Superman, Mission: Impossible- The Final Reckoning, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Seeing her trajectory, it may be easy to forget that Dunst got her start in comedy films, so an appearance in A Minecraft Movie 2 might give her the opportunity to prove once more how funny she can be.
