Stars’ shine has dulled
Event movies, franchises overtake A-listers at box office
Will Smith, Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson ruled the box office in 1996. A decade later, it was Johnny Depp, Ben Stiller and Tom Hanks.
In 2016? Chris Evans, Felicity Jones and a masked Ryan Reynolds — or, more specifically, Captain America, Jyn Erso and Deadpool.
Decades of Hollywood Alister influence seems to be dwindling while event film franchises along the lines of “Star Wars” and Marvel superhero projects have taken over.
“On the back of a big star, you could market your way to a big first weekend before social media. People just would say, ‘It’s the new Julia Roberts movie, let’s go see it,’ ” said comScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian, referring to a simpler time when trailers and commercials informed moviegoers rather than widespread internet scuttlebutt and early reviews. “The star power now is the collective power of the stars, the brand, the writ wood,” the release date. If a big star happens to be in the movie, that’s icing on the cake.”
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” has blasted the competition for three weeks running, racking up $425 million with Jones and a cast of mid-level actors and relative unknowns. Meanwhile, the holiday movie “Collateral Beauty” — featuring Smith, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Helen Mirren and Keira Knightley (who have 18 Oscar nominations between them) — could muster only $25.8 million. Even more baffling for onlookers might be “Passengers,” the sci-fi romance with top talent Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence that’s hauled in a mere $61.5 million.
Two star vehicles expand nationwide Jan. 13, Mark Wahlberg’s “Patriots Day” and Ben Affleck’s “Live by Night,” but even those two actors are in huge 2017 tentpole films that are much bigger deals: Wahlberg in “Transformers: The Last Knight” (in theaters June 23), Affleck in “Justice League” (Nov. 17).
Last year registered a historic $11.37 billion in box office, though the most famous name in the biggest movie — Ellen DeGeneres in “Finding Dory” ($486.3 million) — voiced a talking fish. Nearly half of the top 10 films were superhero projects, and one of them, the surprise hit “Deadpool ($363.1 million), covered up Reynolds’ face for much of its running time. It’s a definite turn from 20 years ago, when Smith fought aliens in the chart-topping “Independence Day” ($306.2 million) and Cruise had a pair of home runs with “Mission: Impossible” ($181 million) and “Jerry Maguire” ($154 million).
Back then, a bankable actor or actress was “as close as there is to a sure thing in Hollying, says film historian Leonard Maltin, who writes about movies at LeonardMaltin.com. “But the playing field has changed. If you have a great concept or an intriguing premise, and you present it well in your advertising and trailers, you can have a hit without a movie star.”
That’s not to say extinction is imminent: Movie stars will always matter because of society’s high level of interest in celebrity, said Erik Davis, managing editor of Fandango.com and Movies.com. “We have several magazines devoted to them and their lives and what they do every single day.”
But because we’re in the age of the “cinematic universe” and have seen the rise of Marvel Studios, “it’s become more about the character than it is who’s playing them,” Davis said. “Seeing Captain America and Iron Man battle each other is more of a draw than the fact that it’s Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr., especially for a younger audience (that didn’t grow up) in the era where it was all about the movie star.”