LOS ANGELES -- Does the Pretty Woman still got it?
It's a question the hateratti are asking a lot this week as Julia Roberts -- booming laugh and high-voltage smile intact -- takes on her splashiest role in years: that of a corporate spy opposite Clive Owen in tomorrow's romantic caper Duplicity.
As one celebrity blog snarked: "Is Julia Roberts the next Katherine Heigl?"
Such is life in Hollywood, where attention spans are shorter than the skirts Roberts wore for her career-defining role as a Beverly Hills hooker.
True, the 41-year-old Oscar winner never officially retired -- merely scaling back her workload to focus on her three children -- but that didn't stop the industry from rushing to crown a new queen. For some, the heir apparent chatter was thunderous. Just ask Rachel McAdams. Or Anne Hathaway. Or Reese Witherspoon. Ditto Kate Hudson, Jennifer Garner and, most recently, Heigl.
Fact is, the search for the Next Julia exhausted so many possibilities you had to wonder if all that was required were two front teeth and a working knowledge of zippers. (Regrettably for Jessica Simpson, one out of two won't do.)
Meanwhile Roberts, whose last starring role was in 2003's Mona Lisa Smile, gravitated towards movies that, to observers, didn't count as true tests of her box-office clout.
Charlie Wilson's War? That was a Tom Hanks' baby.
The Ocean's franchise? That was a George Clooney and Brad Pitt smirk-fest.
Closer? That was a lacerating Mike Nichols ensemble piece no one was going to pay to see anyway.
"She hasn't made a 'Julia Roberts movie' this decade," says Brandon Gray, president and publisher of online tracker boxofficemojo.com.
"She's been doing artsier movies or taking supporting roles in ensembles. Now the question is, 'Is that Julia Roberts brand still strong?' Duplicity will answer that to some degree."
So far, it looks iffy -- the new film faces formidable competition from the Nicolas Cage thriller Knowing and the Paul Rudd-Jason Segel bromance I Love You, Man. Still, Roberts has weathered worse storms before. Post-Pretty Woman, she suffered a string of crippling flops -- I Love Trouble and Mary Reilly among them -- before recovering with four $100-million-grossers in a row, starting with My Best Friend's Wedding.
These are also, it should be noted, different, more troubling times for movie stars in general.
Hollywood's current orbit of comic-book-based, effects-driven spectacles translates to fewer actor-led projects and greater scrutiny over multi-million-dollar paydays. Her peers from the 1990s have already endured their share of scorn. Consider Tom Cruise's recent career woes or the paltry $16 million Kevin Costner's Swing Vote earned. Consider that Demi Moore, once the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, is better known now for being married to Ashton Kutcher, or the dismal performance of former girl-next-door Meg Ryan's The Women last year.
For Roberts, how robustly Duplicity opens may determine what she does next.
Will she be allowed to cherry-pick projects to star in or will she be shoe-horned towards the kind of supporting roles most actresses over 40 make do with? (Hollywood's double standards are well-documented: male actors such as Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford are encouraged to carry movies even though they're senior citizens.)
Whatever happens, Gray points out it's going to be a long time before Hollywood finally lays claim to its Next Julia -- if ever.
"No current actress can match her track record. Some have come close -- like Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon -- but they haven't shown consistency with their choices ... Until she shows otherwise, she's still a big star."
Julia Roberts' top five box-office hits:
Excluding Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Twelve which, let's face it, weren't about her any more than they were about Casey Affleck and Don Cheadle:
Pretty Woman (1990): A Cinderella story with a twist: Cinderella's a hooker! Say what you will about the thematic underpinnings of this rom-com, it made the then-23-year-old Roberts a mega-star and remains her highest-grossing flick.
Gross: $178 million.
Runaway Bride (1999): This comedy, which reunited her with Richard Gere and director Garry Marshall, was touted as being as close to a Pretty Woman sequel as audiences would ever get. Moviegoers responded in force.
Gross: $152 million.
My Best Friend's Wedding (1997): After a mid-1990s spate of dour flops (Mary Reilly among them), Roberts rebounded -- long red tresses intact -- with this buoyant comedy about a woman scheming to prevent the marriage of her male best friend to Cameron Diaz.
Gross: $127 million.
Erin Brockovich (2000): The last film Roberts carried past the $100-million mark. She won an Oscar for her portrait of a single mom and mouthy legal assistant who tangles with a power company suspected of polluting a community's water supply.
Gross: $125 million.
Notting Hill (1999): Playing a glamourous movie star who falls in love with an anonymous nobody played by Hugh Grant really wasn't much of a stretch for Roberts. A few years later, she married cameraman Danny Moder.
Gross: $116 million.
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