HOLLYWOOD -- Call it Rachel's Revenge.
After years of trying to kick-start her post-Friends movie career, Jennifer Aniston is finally on something resembling a roll.
Thanks to the back-to-back box-office successes of Marley & Me (which just passed the $140-million mark) and this past weekend's opening of He's Just Not That Into You (a better than expected $27.5 million), Aniston, who turns 40 today, has extra reason to celebrate.
For a while there, her big-screen fortunes were looking about as bright as those of her fellow Friends.
With the exception of her collaboration with former bf Vince Vaughn in 2006's The Break-Up, which earned a respectable $118.7 million, Rachel hadn't been generating much Green at the megaplexes.
Combined, Derailed, Friends with Money and the poorly-received Rob Reiner romantic comedy Rumor Has It ... didn't even come close to matching The Break-Up's total take, leading more than one industry observer to wonder if audiences were just not that into Aniston anymore.
Now that she's back, will she be able to keep the streak going?
Good question.
Next up, at least in theory, will be Management, an indie film Aniston did with Steve Zahn and Woody Harrelson which had its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival but went home without a distributor.
It has since been picked up by the Samuel Goldwyn Company, but a firm release date hasn't been set.
Neither that movie nor Traveling, a recently completed drama in which Aniston stars with Aaron Eckhart and Martin Sheen, sound exactly like box-office gold, but a couple slated to go into production this year hold more promise.
Scheduled to begin shooting in New York this spring, The Baster is, yes, an artificial insemination comedy pairing Aniston and Jason Bateman, to be directed by the Blades of Glory team of Will Speck and Josh Gordon.
Also in the works is an as-yet-untitled comedy starring Gerard Butler as a bounty hunter who must track down ex-wife Aniston after she skips bail.
Directing will be none other than Andy Tenant, whose rom-com track record includes Sweet Home Alabama, Hitch and Fools Gold.
Now they sound more like it.
More Artists