How would you define “locked in”? Sure, we know it’s a matter of staying focused on the task and letting nothing get in your way. But how would we describe that in movies and TV? What examples would you give? Well, in a recent social media trend, fans are putting their money on some of the biggest names in the history of entertainment.
Last week, X user jayjjalen asked followers to “define ‘locked in’”, resulting in millions of views and thousands of replies. The real catch here is that the “locked in” phase must have been consecutive and uninterrupted. In other words, if there was one slip-up via a box office bomb or creative flop, it doesn’t count – that is, they weren’t truly “locked in.”
There have been a lot of awesome answers in the thread, with some saying Jim Carrey’s 1994 triple header of Ace Ventura, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber is unbeatable in the discussion of “locked in”. Those more on the fringe went with John Carpenter’s 1976-1988 run (sorry, Dark Star!), which kicked off with Assault on Precinct 13 and concluded with They Live.
As far as actors go, no doubt Tom Cruise has to be in the running, with Risky Business, All the Right Moves, Legend, Top Gun, The Color of Money, Cocktail, Rain Man, and Born on the Fourth of July all released consecutively. One could also make the argument that Days of Thunder also deserves mention, but no doubt the streak stalled with 1992’s Far and Away. And with Cruise being Cruise, he went on another tear immediately after, kicking it off with A Few Good Men and carrying that through to at least Magnolia.
Another Tom (that is, Hanks) went wild in the ‘90s and into the early ‘00s, kicking off his run with 1992’s A League of Their Own and ending it with Catch Me If You Can through a series of box office hits and Oscar nominations.
On the director side of things, who would be against putting James Cameron in the “locked in” conversation with The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, T2, True Lies, and Titanic? And, really, the only reason not to include Avatar is because it came more than a decade after Titanic, which is far from feeling “locked in”. A similar case could be made for Stanley Kubrick, whose entire filmography is nearly flawless but he wasn’t exactly the most prolific guy. Also on the classic front, I’ll toss in the 1951-1963 run for Alfred Hitchcock, especially by releasing Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds within a five-year span.
There are a lot of different avenues to explore in the discussion of most “locked in” actors and directors. So, give us your picks and defend your choices in the comments section below!