Which Hollywood Stars Are Taking A Break From the Box Office This Summer?

The phrase "summer vacation" often has the inverse meaning for Hollywood's most bankable talent. While mere mortals pack up the station wagon for a week at the beach, A-list actors work triple-time to promote the tentpole production for which they were paid (and studios spent) handsomely. This summer though, some of America's favorite movie stars are taking a true summer vacation from the rigors of the multiplex. Let's review those few, and determine whether their big screen absence from May to August will make audience's hearts grow fonder.

Russell Crowe

After receiving back-to-back mixed reviews for last summer's adventure misfire Robin Hood and this year's The Next Three Days, the Oscar-winning Aussie is on box office hiatus until December when he premieres The Man With An Iron Fist. In RZA's directorial debut, Crowe returns to the historical avenging game as a blacksmith in feudal China who must protect his villagers. If the film is promoted well (press-friendly Inglourious Basterds co-horts Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth are producers and could lend a hand in the lead-up), The Man With An Iron Fist could return Crowe to audience's favor.

Will Smith

Time flies when you're helping lift off your children's entertainment careers. Will Smith hasn't headlined a movie since 2008's Seven Pounds -- the critical disappointment that still went on to gross over $150 million worldwide -- but the actor produced 2010's Karate Kid remake (which starred his son Jaden) and McG's upcoming This Means War starring Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy. He will headline next summer's (assumed) blockbuster Men In Black III -- and has about 50 million other projects on the table -- but he might just want to start grooming Jaden to be the next Teflon Smith at the box office, a torch passing that could begin in earnest if the father-son tandem co-star in the next M. Night Shyamalan film.

Sandra Bullock

Who can blame America's Sweetheart for taking a two-year hiatus after her Oscar win and the tumultuous personal events that followed? On the professional plus side, a break from the big screen might save Bullock from making the same post-Academy Award mistakes that her predecessors have made. (Freejack, Anthony Hopkins? Really?) Regardless of the critical buzz surrounding her next project, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, crowds will flock to the theater to see Sandy's onscreen comeback next year.

Leonardo DiCaprio

After mindbanging all of America last summer with Inception, Leonardo lit up a post coital cigarette, and one year later is still dragging on it while the Ryan Reynolds' of the world fight for summer glory. Not that he's slowing down: DiCaprio will get kinky as J. Edgar Hoover in Clint Eastwood's biopic of the closeted FBI director and he's signed onto Baz Luhrmann's cuckoo bananas 3D adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

Tom Cruise

If DiCaprio has been the picture of consistency over the past decade, Tom Cruise has not. With roles ranging from forgettable (Lions for Lambs, Valkyrie) to fun-but-slight (Tropic Thunder), Cruise could use a little more audience friendly oomph. Like returning to the role of Ethan Hunt, perhaps. After last summer's box office misfire Knight and Day, the megastar will lay low this summer, but come out guns blazin' in Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (out December). Cruise will follow that one up with Rock of Ages, which will hit theaters in the summer of 2012.

Katherine Heigl

Remember when the Grey's Anatomy actress was a promising leading lady in highly enjoyable comedies like 27 Dresses, Knocked Up and even, to most of America, The Ugly Truth? Then her career took a horrible turn when she badmouthed her former ABC employers, signed on to co-star with Ashton Kutcher in Killers and was possibly brainwashed by someone into thinking that Life As We Know It was a good idea. Her latest film, One For the Money (which stars Heigl as a lingerie buyer-turned-bad ass bounty hunter) sounds like a hybrid of Jennifer Aniston's horrific Bounty Hunter and Killers. In a sign of no-confidence Lionsgate bumped its release date from summertime back to January. Forget the beach. The best vacation this year is time spent away from a Katherine Heigl rom-com.

Meryl Streep

After redefining sleeper success in 2006 and 2008 with The Devil Wears Prada and Mamma Mia!, respectively, our greatest living actress served up another summer hit in 2009 with Julie & Julia and then took a break from releasing movies in warm weather seasons. But that's fine because she is Meryl Streep and we will see her in whatever she films next, including her Margaret Thatcher biopic and especially Great Hope Springs, the drama she will reportedly co-star in with Steve Carell.

Seth Rogen

After the superhero-sized disappointment of The Green Hornet and the lackluster Paul release, it's safe to say that audiences could use a trial separation from Seth Rogen -- this despite relatively strong performances from him in both films. In an effort to change the game, Rogen will next star in a pair of drama-y features: Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz opposite Michelle Williams, and Jonathan Levine's cancer project 50/50, co-starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Will audiences want Rogen -- a fixture of summer season comedies in the past -- to return to the large-but-lovable lugs that made him famous? Stay tuned...

Scarlett Johansson

Following her turn as the Black Widow in Iron Man 2, Johansson is shying away from the limelight, while her ex Ryan Reynolds gets his shot at comic stardom in Green Lantern. Regardless of how far away she stays from the cinema this summer though, audiences will still be anxious for her next project because with it will certainly come personal interviews tied to the film's promotion. Johansson will return to the screen this December for Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo before reprising her role as the Black Widow for next summer's Avengers opposite Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr.