Eddie’s draw, just on its own, was still bigger than just about anyone else could have delivered at the time.
Eddie’s draw, just on its own, was minuscule and not enough to make a hit movie. That’s the point. And the star system is even deader now, with 400 movies a year coming out wide and most of the “big stars” in a movie every 3 or 4 months audiences that want to see that person can wait until the next one and hope it’s more interesting. None of these Lawrence flops would have done any better with anybody else, they just weren’t appealing movies (or even good) and weren’t well advertised. And so they bombed.