Actors and actresses who are well-known to the audience, who usually play the lead or main role in a movie, are called movie stars. The names of these stars are used in movie advertisements, posters, trailers. Their popularity with the audience helps in selling movie tickets.
Currently, Hollywood is going through another change. Blockbuster or mid-budget movies driven by New Hollywood movie stars are no more. There was a time when the mere mention of a Tom Cruise movie or Brad Pitt was enough to bring audiences to the theater.
What do we see in 2022? Brad Pitt’s $90 million budgeted ‘Bullet Train’ grossed $239 million at the box office. His another 80 million dollar budgeted movie ‘Babylon’ has failed at the box office by earning only 5 million in the opening weekend.
Out of the myriad movie stars, only two have been able to reliably bring audiences to cinemas so far – Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio. Why and how did Hollywood’s movie star system get into this predicament?
Marvel, DC’s commercially successful movies are due to the superheroes on the successful posters, not the stars playing the superheroes. This theory is easily verified. Captain America, Thor and Iron Man – these three trilogies together have grossed more than $7 billion at the box office.
But none of Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth or Robert Downey Jr. have a superhit movie outside of Marvel. So who is the real star here? Chris Hemsworth or Thor?
Another big factor is the movie star crisis. The difference between movie star and actor is skyrocketing day by day. Potential, talented actors have to choose between prestige dramas or big budget blockbusters.
You can’t become a movie star by doing prestige drama movies, and blockbusters don’t have any industrial touch. This is a big reason why good quality actors don’t make big movie stars these days. However, there is some glimmer of hope in 2021 movies like ‘Dune’.
In high-concept blockbusters, actors use their craft as they rise to stardom. A director like Denis Villeneuve might be able to resurrect a movie star like Timothy Shalum.
Hollywood should consciously place more mid-budget movies with blockbusters in this genre. Only then will the new style of movie stars be in vogue in future generations.