Julia Roberts Still Has the It Factor to Sell Movies

With audiences shifting their attention from the stars of “yore” towards the new generation, Julia Roberts’ appeal is being questioned. Not to worry, she isn’t going anywhere.

America’s sweetheart has a new movie coming out: “Eat Pray Love,” based on the best-selling book of the same name.

Deemed a genuine girlie flick, “Eat Pray Love” will mark Julia’s comeback to the top positions of the box office. It will be like the past 10 years haven’t even happened, analyst Jeff Bock says for E! Online.

Though her career has seen many ups and downs, Julia still hasn’t lost her appeal to audiences. With the right project, she can write history again.

And “Eat Pray Love” is certainly the right project for her, Bock believes.

“Julia Roberts has always been the type of actress that can ‘carry’ the right type of picture for her – Julia-against-the-world films like Erin Brockovich or The Pelican Brief, or romantic comedies like Notting Hill,” Bock says.

“Audiences love to see her in these types of roles, and Eat Pray Love is a combination of those two,” he adds.

If she sticks to the tried out formula, Julia is a certified winner with moviegoers, as her previous hits indicate.

While she scored big time with “Brockovich” or “The Mexican,” her roles in “Duplicity” and “Charlie Wilson’s War” failed at the box office, precisely because she’d strayed from her secret recipe to success.

Roberts has also seen a downgrade in terms of payment: while she was once able to boast a salary of $20 million per film, she reportedly got only half of that for “Eat Pray Love.”

Bar Angelina Jolie, Roberts still remains a force to be reckoned with in the movie industry, regardless of some of the things mentioned above.

“I don’t think there is a woman alive right now that can open a film stronger than Angelina Jolie, but if you put America’s Sweetheart in a sweetheart of a role, she is still on top of Hollywood’s A-list every time,” the same analyst explains.

“Eat Pray Love” is out in US theaters on August 13.

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