Michael Cera vs Ansel Elgort (Shades of Geek)

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) earned only $10.6 million over its debut weekend. Scott Wampler of Comedy Examiner puts Pilgrim’s flopping down to “Michael Cera fatigue” (which Josh Tyler of Cinema Blend also touched on, calling it 'not just a flop, one of the biggest bombs'). People Hate Michael Cera, wrote Tyler": "While he has his fans, people hate Michael Cera a lot. In particular they hate that he always plays the same character and he did it again in Scott Pilgrim. Audiences are sick of it. They're sick of him. They're especially sick of him as a leading man. Maybe that's not fair. In fact I'm almost certain it isn't. I think what people are really sick of is the whole hipster subculture, a group which has been in many cases been confused by Hollywood with geeks, when they're not."

"Even more than they hate Michael Cera, mainstream America hates hipsters. And if the hipster movement has a mascot, it's Cera. The box office performance of his films has grown progressively worse. Scott Pilgrim just had the misfortune to be there at the place where the whole Michael Cera thing all bottomed out." “I’m very proud of Scott Pilgrim, and I know that for the marketing team at Universal, it was one of their favorite movies to work on, but the truth of it is that some films are a little more complicated to get the message across,” said Edgar Wright. “No matter how sophisticated you make a movie, you still have to sell it at a pitch level.”

Baby Driver, by casting Ansel Elgort as the lead, Wright has built a distinctive action movie with strong female appeal. Encouraged by test-screening scores and a raucous South by Southwest premiere, Sony moved the film’s release date up and targeted its digital marketing to appeal to both genders. “This is still a passion project for me, but at the same time, you can cut a totally commercial trailer for it that will get people in there who haven’t seen any of my movies,” said Wright. “That, for me, is a win-win: They came for the car chases but there’s some other stuff as well, and they like the other stuff.” “I’m not ruling out a sequel idea,” Wright admitted about a Baby Driver sequel: “It has been spoken about and I have some cool ideas, so we’ll see where that goes.” Wright laughed. “Then I’ll be one of those franchise guys!” Source: www.vulture.com

Quint (Eric Vespe) here: I ran into Ansel Elgort at CinemaCon while I was gambling after a day of watching clips and presentations and stuff. He was at the blackjack tables and I had to say hi, tell him how much I loved Baby Driver and he was as cool and nice as you could imagine. Every once in a while you meet someone with so much natural charisma you know instantly they're going to be doing big things. I thought Elgort was talented, but holy shit is his charm, timing and pure likability off the charts in this movie. I'm sure Alden Ehrenreich is going to be great as Han Solo, but after seeing Elgort in Baby Driver I'm flat out shocked he didn't get the role. Elgort's Baby is not some kind of quirky asshole. He's an incredibly smart kid that's in debt to a pretty bad guy (played with relish by Kevin Spacey). 

He's a little introverted, but he has a big heart. That big ol' heart doubles in size when he finds a soulmate in Lily James' Debora and who can blame him? It's going to be very difficult for any audience member not to fall at least a little bit in love with Deb (the sexy waitress), Baby (the good 'bad boy'), and Deb & Baby as a couple. They just click and their chemistry is so strong that they'll remind you of that couple in your life that perfectly compliment each other and know it. Everybody has one of those pairs around them. Source: www.aintitcool.com

Ansel Elgort may not seem like the obvious choice to play a criminal, but Baby needs to be different things to different people, and Elgort plays sweet and sensitive as convincingly as he does focused and fearless. His range has never been tested quite like this before, but he delivers. There’s something both timeless and modern about the performance (unlike Michael Cera's too modern Scott Pilgrim) and the film. Wright’s encyclopedic knowledge of classic cinema takes him to a certain point in all of his movies, allowing his awareness of what feels funky-fresh-dope to push things into entertainment overdrive. Baby Driver is unfiltered entertainment, and sometimes that’s exactly what the Doc ordered. Source: www.aintitcool.com

Ansel Elgort is seen upon arrival at Haneda Airport on August 17, 2017 in Tokyo, Japan.

Famous guys who travel for a living, like Ansel Elgort, know that comfort matters. They also know that the halls of any international airport in 2017 are just as visible as any red carpet. Hence Ansel Elgort's latest menswear combination: Louis Vuitton x Supreme pajama pants, a tan Officine Générale T-shirt, gleaming white sneakers, and a neon-orange leather backpack. Despite the outfit's flash, it's a practical uniform for Elgort's flight from Beijing, China, to Tokyo, Japan. The Baby Driver himself is in the middle of a worldwide tour for his film, meaning he spends most of his days on stage or on a red carpet in a suit. So when he's off duty, he's really off-duty.  Source: www.gq.com

It might not seem like a big deal if you like Coke while your partner likes Pepsi -- but In their study Coke vs. Pepsi: Brand Compatibility, Relationship Power, and Life Satisfaction, researchers from Duke University recently found that preferring different brands can affect our happiness in relationships more than shared interests or personality traits. The Candler Building in Atlanta, where the opening scene of Baby Driver takes place, was built by the founder of Coca Cola in 1906. Though geographically consistent for the first two minutes, the sequence eventually jumps to a different (albeit nearby) location for the next minute or so; once it reaches the freeway, things naturally speed up. Source: www.indiewire.com