Brad Pitt with Jennifer Aniston ... or with Angelina Jolie What relationship marked us the most?
Given the renewed friendship between Jennifer Aniston and her ex-husband Brad Pitt, we compare the two relationships and her influence on popular culture
There is a school of thought that considers history to be cyclical and time to be a flat circle. That everything that happened will happen again and that there is nothing new under the Sun (to paraphrase a popular religious book). We see it every day with the return of popular fashions like leather jackets, aviator glasses and record players, rescued from oblivion to be 'enjoyed' again. But there is another trend from more than a decade ago that is returning: we refer to the 'Braniston', an acronym used to describe the relationship between the Hollywood heartthrob Brad Pitt and the actress Jennifer Aniston who was the talk of hundreds of magazines and newspapers to from the year 2000.
'Braniston', which has gained strength thanks to the reunion of both actors in such publicized events as the Golden Globe and the SAG Awards, had been displaced to the sands of oblivion in 2005 with the birth of the relationship between Pitt and Angelina Jolie in the set of the movie called "Mr & Mrs Smith", where both actors played a married couple who hid their work as a spy from their partner.
At the time, the "Fight Club" actor was married to Aniston, but her relationship with Jolie led to "irreconcilable differences" that caused a divorce that is even now remembered in popular culture. That's why when Jolie and Pitt decided to divorce in 2016, there must have been some rejoicing among Braniston fans. History is a circle.
It is almost impossible to measure such abstract issues as the influence of some element, especially decades away. One of the ways to measure would be by looking for the amount of content on the respective couples, but technological advances and changes in reading habits from paper to the web since the beginning of the millennium make any measurement of this type distort reality.
Despite this, it is clear that "Brangelina" was one of the most influential couples of the decade, while "Braniston" was nothing but a climax until recently, long after the publicized divorce between Jolie and Pitt in 2016.
It stands to reason, considering that when Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt first met, they were both rising stars on both television and film. But when in 2006, when Jolie and Pitt revealed their relationship, they were separately two of the most influential figures in Hollywood. Together, they were unstoppable.
Forbes calculated that between 2004 and 2016, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt together generated $ 555 million between their work and their various businesses, with an estimated $ 315 million produced by the actor. Due to the private nature of the divorce proceedings, it is not known exactly how the separation of property was in the case of 'Brangelina', although it has been reported that Pitt is paying support for the six children they had together and that there is some disputed properties.
Meanwhile, what was generated during the ‘Braniston’ era was more modest, although far beyond the imagination of mere mortals. Although there is no data on how much Pitt and Jennifer Aniston generated while they were married, but it must be considered that from 2002 the actress became one of the best paid when negotiating with the cast of "Friends" to be paid US $ 1 million per episode. According to Hello !, the divorce between the two ended with a division of an estate of almost US $ 60 million in equitable shares.
In the eye of the storm
Another example of the relevance of both couples is the coverage in the media of some important events in their lives. Let's compare the attention that both weddings received. Whereas when Pitt and Aniston were married on July 29 in Malibu, they did so in a relatively ‘modest ceremony’ of US $ 1 million attended by 200 guests, among their colleagues, family and friends. Due to security measures, there are not many photographs from inside the wedding, although there are quite a few aerial images of the area where it occurred. It was, of course, the cover of all the entertainment magazines, although not to the degree that Pitt's next marriage would have.
Thus, when Pitt and Jolie finally decided to get married in 2014 it was after a long wait two years after they got engaged. The nuptials were in a private ceremony at the Château Miraval couple's castle, in the south of France, attended by only 20 of the duo's closest people. However, media interest was so great that People magazine paid $ 2 million for photos of the ceremony.
An exorbitant amount, but that does not compare to the US $ 6 million that the same publication paid for images of the first biological daughter of the Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt couple in 2006, a birth that also earned the actors and their offspring a few wax figures in the prestigious Madame Tussauds wax museum. Even that incredible sum is nowhere near the $ 14 million paid in 2008 by People and Hello! for exclusive images of the birth of the couple's twins, Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon.
Sharing screens
Despite being married for 12 years, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt only shared the screen twice. In 2005, with the release of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith ”that started their relationship, and in 2015 with“ By the Sea ”, a film directed by Jolie about a failed marriage on the coast of France. Premonitory and, at the same time, a failure at the box office, managing to raise only US $ 3.3 million of its budget of US $ 10 million.
Of course, the power of ‘Brangelina’ cannot be underestimated and, although the actors did not share the small screen, they were mentioned and parodied in shows like “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy”.
Meanwhile the only collaboration between Jennifer Aniston and Pitt occurred in one of the best episodes of "Friends." Titled "The One with the Rumor," this episode aired in the series' eighth season features Pitt as Will Colbert, an arch nemesis of Rachel Green (Aniston) from high school who started a rumor that the ex-rapist had male sex organs and female. Their antagonistic relationship, in contrast to what they had in real life at the time, made this one of the most memorable episodes of the series.
In addition to remaining an icon in popular culture, this episode earned Pitt an Emmy Award nomination. Now that Pitt and Aniston are friends, and with the multiple requests for a reunion of "Friends", will there be a chance for the return of Will Colbert?
But in the end, this question about who was more influential can only be resolved by the people themselves, so we invite you to participate in our survey.
