We typically let the film critics and movie press talk about the weekend winners and losers. But this weekend is different because two stars had big weekends and we expect to see more from them in the future (and thus, wanted to write a few words on them). Jet Li & Kristen Bell.
Li, as you know, is a martial artist icon in China, and his first movie with Jackie Chan led to Hollywood success. Their movie, “The Forbidden Kingdom”, will come in number one for the weekend. Previously, he had been in several movies in the States but this one is different. More attention because of Jackie Chan and bad weather driving traffic in NY, Philadelphia and Boston. We expect American companies to see how they can use Li to market to Chinese Americans as well as the Chinese marketplace itself. Check out his Foundation. It’s pretty cool and already gets excellent corporate attention from multi-national companies.
And let’s not forget about Kristen Bell. What a few months for this 27-year old actress. In the fall she was named to NBC’s Heroes. Earlier this month, Bell signed on to the Glow in the Dark campaign on the Jergens website. For every similar pledge made by the public, Jergens - known for its Natural Glow self-darkening skin products - donates $1 to The Skin Care Foundation. Her movie, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” came right behind Li’s. All of corporate America saw the clever advertising campaign throughout NY and other big cities the past few weeks. And this one too. She too will be a face you will see a lot of in the future.
PS — A New Jersey based company called BigString has come up with a technology for instantly dissolving Instant messages that are untraceable, and probably could have bailed out a host of celebrities like Charlie Sheen, whose private messages were used for intentions, both good and bad, that they were not intended for. Although there is a certain proactive aspect as to who would use this technology, it will probably also help out those who want to keep real time conversations online safe and secure, as well as those who don’t want to get caught doing things they shouldn’t be doing.
