Billionaires often try to portray themselves as a hero, or even a victim, talking about how hard their life had been before they were self-made. Most people don’t buy it, and still see a majority of billionaires as villains or at the very least, someone who had a lucky break.
But that doesn’t stop some from trying to show billionaires in a good light, even going so far as to create movies portraying them as heroes. There are some very obvious ones, like Iron Man or even Batman, where the billionaire ends up becoming a hero and saving everyone, but there are more subtle cases too.
5
Pretty Woman
On the surface, Pretty Woman is a cute romance. A prostitute gets hired by a billionaire to attend some social events with him, and then they end up falling in love.
However, under that, it is really a movie about trying to show how billionaires can be good guys. They try to portray Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) as a hero for saving this poor woman off of the streets, but the fact that she was the prettiest streetwalker, and the fact that he held power over her just didn’t sit well with some viewers.
Also, the movie portrayed him as different than everyone else. While people kicked out Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) for the way she dressed and made no effort to help her, Edward Lewis didn’t feel the same, looking past her status to the person she was underneath, and while she had flaws, they were only minor ones. Some still loved the movie, especially thanks to the spark between Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, but others felt that it just was too perfect, and the billionaire love interest was made to look too ideal.
4
6 Underground
6 Underground is about a billionaire and philanthropist named Magnet S. Johnson. He gets tired of seeing the horrors of a brutal regime without doing anything about it, so he fakes his own death and creates a ground of vigilantes.
While many people found it good, especially with Ryan Reynolds playing the billionaire known as “One”, the plot itself is rough. The action is jumpy and the story doesn’t really work out well.
One piece that ruins the realism and the plot is the fact that the main character is a billionaire and chose this route. He is meant to be seen as a hero, albeit a dark one, using his money to create the ultimate vigilante group. However, there are better things he could have done with the money, such as using it to go and actually help fight the regimes he had problems with.
Instead of actually making a difference, and staying under the limelight and assisting via food, water, buildings, and jobs to actually help people long-run, this billionaire “hero” decided that a vigilante group was a better answer.
3
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park is a movie about bringing dinosaurs back to life. So you may be wondering how a billionaire is involved, and how the movie tried to portray one as a hero.
The person who created the original park and hired scientists to bring back the dinosaurs, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), is a billionaire.
While viewers see the horrors of what he has done at the end, it at first seems like he is a hero that has managed to do something impossible. He is inviting scientists to take a look, and the event turned the island into a park, so it will be safe for everyone who wants to come and see the miracles. It surely isn’t his fault that things got out of hand and his grandchildren were almost killed, right?
2
50 Shades of Grey
Universal Pictures
There’s a lot wrong with 50 Shades of Grey.
However, just looking at the story itself, it already had a glaring problem, and that was the fact that it tried to show the billionaire Mr. Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) as nothing more than a good character.
After all, as long as people obeyed his list of demands, he would shower them with praise, money, and let them have a good time. The bad part was that he couldn’t even follow his own guidelines. There were many times he outright ignored his love interest Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) when she took away consent and stepped into an abusive role.
The writer tried to play it off by saying that it was due to his abuse as a child, but many fans can’t overlook that Christian Grey went well outside BDSM into abuse and assault.
1
Twilight
Temple Hill Entertainment
Last on our list is Twilight. Specifically, this is about Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli). While he is widely considered one of the best people in the movie series, and perhaps even the books, he still has many flaws.
Due to his time being a vampire, he has accumulated a large amount of wealth and can be considered a billionaire. On the surface, he seems to be an overall good person. He’s helped vampires not have to rely on human blood, took in a bunch of strays, and became a good doctor.
However, digging into the backstory a little shows he isn’t as amazing as one might think. For example, he has turned almost all of the people in his “family”, some of whom didn’t even want to be turned, and despise being vampires, like Rosalie (Nikki Reed) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). He also hides away and doesn’t use his money for good, such as to help the homeless or even find cures for serious diseases. He could do so anonymously, so there isn’t any excuse.
