Pigeonholed?

I was thinking about people who work in the creative industries recently. It seems like if a person has success, then the public comes to have certain expectations of what those people will do, and deviations are rarely greeted well.

For example, by and large Adam Sandler makes fairly lowbrow comedies. They usually involve humor through use of profanity and people getting injured. His characters frequently have anger issues which lead to those humorous uses of profanity and violence. And this has been a fairly successful formula for him, made him a lot of money. A few years ago he tried to do something a little different with Punch Drunk Love. His character still had some anger issues, but it didn't lead to humorous situations, and his inability to know when to express anger, and when not to, hampered his interactions with other people. It was his typical emotional immaturity, only examined more seriously.

Of course, it did very poorly in the box office. Obviously, revenue generated shouldn't be the determining factor in whether something was good, but the poor public response can't be encouraging if you're thinking of expanding your repetoire.

I think what started me on this track was thinking of the huge success of The DaVinci Code. I'd imagine it made Dan Brown a lot of money, and it seems to have spawned any number of similar stories from other authors looking to cash in. But is it going to be the book that defines Brown's career? If he wants to write a book about pirates, or China in the 6th century, without a trace of secret organizations, would it be eagerly welcomed, or would people complain that it wasn't more like The DaVinci Code? As with Sandler, if the pirate novel is the one he really wants to write, then hopefully it wouldn't bother him that the public (or critics) didn't like it, because it's the story he always wanted to tell, and he's likely got the financial flexibility to do that.

Is J.K. Rowling going to have the same issue? Are people going to expect any works she publishes after this to be like Harry Potter, or will her name convince people to judge her works on their own merits? Maybe she'll write under a different name, like when Stephen King wrote as Richard Bachman (to let him tell darker stories, I think). Or Douglas Reeman writing as Alexander Kent, which I could never figure out. Most of Reeman's stories involved 20th wartime vessels (I went through a serious Reeman stage in 9th grade). The Kent stories took place on 18th century naval vessels. I haven't read his Kent work, so I can't comment on what about it would be so different he'd feel the need to publish it under a pseudonym.

I imagine this has happened with some of the great painters; completing works that differ from their earlier pieces, and having the public reject the works because of that, but my art history knowledge is poor, so I've got no examples there.

The thing I'm uncertain about, as it relates to the roles actor's take, or the books author's write, or the style of paintings/sculptures that artists create, is whether it is determined by public response, or if it's just what they feel most comfortable writing. Michael Connelly writes detective stories, set mostly in Los Angeles, usually involving a detctive named Harry Bosch, and corruption or secrecy in the higher offices. Does he stick to that realm because it pays the bills, or because those are the kinds of stories he likes to tell? Maybe he (or Brown, Rowling, Reeman) don't want to right about 6th century Chinese dynasties, they like what they write about, because it's what they're interested in.

Maybe it varies from person to person. Some people stick to it for money, some because its comfortable. If true, I'd expect the "money" people to experiment more, try and right a more diverse style of books, because they might figure that a different type of book could still sell well, and it would be something different to try. I don't know though. I know some of you are either in or interested in the creative industries, so maybe you've got some thoughts.