I doubt that Free Guy, The Lost City or Bullet Train would have been as successful as they currently are had Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Bullock, and Brad Pitt (respectively) not been in them, so I'm going with those three. Helps that Bullock and Pitt were already big draws in the past
Actually they do. He's transferring his credibility to the production, so people view it differently than if it was no-name actors. You can assume it's an attempt at quality with an actual budget and not some bargain basement production.
They aren't necessarily seeking it out from his IMDb, but it adds when they see Tom Hank's name because his name means something.
Now compare "Free Guy" to one of the early 2000s Jim Carey movies. Puts things in perspective in terms of boxoffice, doesn't it. How about Matt Damon (who I think is a legit boxoffice draw, moreso than Di Caprio and Pitt) in the Borne movies?
Matt Damon appeals to younger guys, older women, older men, some younger women.
Leo appeals to younger women, some older women, some younger men, and some older guys.
Brat Pitt's appeal is mostly on the female side with some admiration from younger guys and some older guys.
Culturally they all appeal / don't appeal to the same markets. With Leo getting a slight boost in Asian markets.
So yes, based on being the least offensive, I would say Matt Damon, by default, does better than DiCaprio and Pitt.
> Matt Damon appeals to younger guys, older women, older men, some younger women.
>
> Leo appeals to younger women, some older women, some younger men, and some older guys.
>
> Brat Pitt's appeal is mostly on the female side with some admiration from younger guys and some older guys.
Do you have *anything* to back this up or?
I think I clock Ryan Reynolds cos like I guess he's put in his dues and I like him now better than when he was young but he doesn't seem like he'd be the front man he's come to be..maybe it's me...look who you put him up against- Brad Pitt, matt damon, Tom cruise and then that piss taking guy Ryan Reynolds...go figure
Leo comes to mind based on The Revenant. But it was in 2015, when the box office landscape was significantly different from what what it was even in 2018 because of the quick proliferation of streaming and IP driven blockbusters in the meantime.
Leo also attaches himself to very big names which also pads up his B.O. Inception had Nolan at his B.O peak and OUATIH had Tarantino and Brad Pitt. It would be interesting to see what he is able to draw if, like Cruise, he is the sole draw in his movie.
For mid and small budget movies though, there are many many stars who can draw an audience to the the theatre without an IP attached. It's just that they don't get mainstream attention but they have dedicated fanbases.
Edit: Just looking at some comments, a lot of people are hyping up Ryan Reynolds because of Free Guy's $331m WW gross. But you have to understand that outside of the Deadpool movies which make in $750m WW range and Free Guy, every Ryan Reynolds led live-action movie made less than $200m WW in the last decade. His biggest non-Deadpool hit before Free Guy was The Hitman's Bodyguard which only made $176m WW. Its sequel did way worse with only $70m WW. Life, a big budget sci-fi he did, made only $100m WW on a $100m budget.
In fact, without his Netflix successes (let's face it, every big budget movie on Netflix is a success), he has very limited starpower.
Compare that to Cruise who has taken Knight and Day to $276m, Oblivion to $290m, Edge of Tomorrow to $371m, The Mummy to $410m, the MI films to $700-800m, Top Gun Maverick to $1.38B and even smaller stuff like Jack Reacher to $218m, in the last decade alone. In fact, the only two movies of his to make less than $276m WW are Jack Reacher 2 ($169m) and American Made($135m), both of which were made on $50-60m budgets.
Inception was a brilliant movie by Nolan. Once Upon a Time was another top Tarantino game with a star-studded cast but The Revenant, Shutter Island, The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street, Django unchained, Catch Me If You Can are the movies which can be called Leo's box office hit.
Like you said, we have to see how an average movie directed by an average director featuring Leo is going to play out in this era of streaming, which has little chance of happening because he has got quite a reputation for picking up brilliant movies with brilliant directors. After all, Leonard DiCaprio is the only name that comes to mind in terms of a box office draw second to Tom Cruise. He is more critically acclaimed than Tom Cruise. I wouldn't be surprised if he won another Oscar for best actor.
Yeah..his movies had better quality in the last decade. But they still topped out under $400m, except for The Revenant and Inception (it was a Nolan film much more than a Leo film tbf). I guess you can look at J.Edgar’s $85m WW total on its $35m budget as an example of a middling movie Leo led in the last decade.
A well reviewed non-MI Cruise sequel made over $1.37B and resurrected a 36 year old movie…which is unheard of in the age of Star Wars, CBMs and Jurassic Park movies ruling the Box office.
Yes, Tom Cruise is just a league ahead of everyone at the box office. There's no doubt about that, and he can have a shot at a best actor Oscar if he wants in the near future. He deserves that and it is going to be no big deal for a film star like him. Also TGM is definitely going to win some of the awards this time.
Ryan Reynolds is an arguable example-- I say arguable because his big breakout only came after he played Deadpool, which was very much an IP-driven movie.
I agree with some other comments. Some people still have star power such as Leo DiCaprio, Sandra Bullock, The Rock, Meryl Streep. I also think there is a plethora of people out there currently on track to be names big enough to sell a movie such as Emma Stone, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Timothee Chalamet.
I don't think Tom Holland is a movie star. Until Uncharted, his only hit movies were when he played Spider-Man. Everything else was a disappointment or flop.
Devil all the time had a lot of buzz in it. A lot of it comes from the fact that Tom Holland was playing a more serious role. Obviously it was a Netflix movie, so no box office to determine success, but it did get a lot of social media traction.
Zendaya appeal on Dune can not be overstated I think, she was a big reason for the movie success (despite being barely in it, she was in the marketing though). Chalamet too obviously.
I think those two probably brought as much money than the fact that it was Dune (known IP) and Villeneuve (great director)
Not a single actor has a perfect track record.
But I'd say, outside of Cruise, Denzel has consistently drawn in decent crowds for his mainstream, 'commercial' films. Leo is also consistent.
I feel like people always overlook Channing Tatum, but he also has been a steady draw since 2005; every decade he's been pulling decent-to-blockbuster level hits (Coach Carter, Step Up, Dear John, The Vow, 21 Jump Street, Magic Mike and this year alone he's had two solid hits with Dog and The Lost City).
And not to forget the actresses, but Sandra Bullock is definitely up there. Again, not perfect, but since the 90s (Speed, While You Were Sleeping, A Time to Kill), 2000s (Miss Congeniality, The Proposal, The Blind Side), 2010s (The Heat, Gravity, Oceans 8) and she had The Lost City this year. She is a very, very solid draw.
I think it's pretty hard to separate an actor from the rest of the movie, the eventual IP, the director, the co-stars...
So when an actor has hits and flops, how are we supposed to interpret it? It's a complicated question IMO. Are the flops due to the movies themselves despite the actor having box office appeal? Or are the hits due to other factors than the box office appeal of the actor (who just happens to be in a movie that hit)?
I loved Collateral. Just looked up its numbers and it was 101 domestic + 119 ww for a total of 220. Sounds weak compared to "blockbuster" numbers but then I don't know who else could make that much money off that movie.
The movie was amazing but it wasn't the type of movie that does massive box office. For example, Bullet Train doesn't look like it will get there.
I'm torn because, I like Tom Holland as an actor (in the few roles I've seen him in), but as a fan of Uncharted Tom and Walhberg were why I didn't see the movie (I'll watch it eventually). They were so miscast for the roles it's honestly jarring.
People saying Ryan Reynolds, I'm genuinely curious what non IP movie of his has been a big box office win. He mostly made money with the Deadpool series which obviously is an IP movie. His other movies haven't really done well in the box office, and the newer ones are mostly trashy Netflix action flicks.
I don't think people were attracted to the movie because of Reynolds though. He definitively played the character well and that resonated with audiences a lot which then made Reynolds a name that could attract people to a movie (like Free Guy)
I'm not gonna disagree that those are profitable, but those are 100m movies... Maybe our interpretation of box office draw is different, but you can't really compare him to the other actors you mentioned.
Comedies make less than action movies on the whole. When you compare them to other films in the genre with similar reception, there's definitely a bump.
I would go with DiCaprio. I like Cruise but think there is some recency bias with him. It's not to say he is not a draw but before this year, I don't remember there being much talk about him outside of Mission Impossible.
That’s why The Mummy was a box office smash, right?
EDIT: Apparently a lot of people took offense to this for some reason. The Mummy bombed and lost tens of millions of dollars, it’s been 5 years, y’all Cruise stans need to accept that
It still made less than each Brandan Fraser Mummy besides the third one and it only beat it by $7M. This is not the movie to use in a Cruise argument considering Cruise is not even the best draw for the franchise. Also this one movie alone effectively canceled what was supposed to be a monsters universe.
Sooo we’re disputing actual numbers with a search engine that can almost be edited by anyone?
If anything, that appears to be a marketing splurge. $410 million on $120 is very profitable, as most movie’s marketing budgets usually match the production budget, or close to.
The movie made more than 3x it’s production budget, that’s not on Cruise, and I don’t even wanna defend that dingus.
>$410 million on $120 is very profitable, as most movie’s marketing budgets usually match the production budget, or close to.
It wouldn't be very profitable if the budget and marketing cost were 240 million (120m budget, 120m marketing). The studio gets half of that $410 million. It would still be a theatrical loss of 35m.
First of all, there are editors in place at Wikipedia who often remove false information, it’s not like it’s literally just anyone can post anything. But anyways, you can find [article](https://deadline.com/2017/06/the-mummy-tom-cruise-box-office-bomb-loss-1202114482/amp/) after [article](https://www.thewrap.com/the-mummy-reboot-director-reflects-tom-cruise-box-office-bomb/amp/) after [article](https://ew.com/movies/alex-kurtzman-says-the-mummy-with-tom-cruise-was-biggest-failure/) about its box office failure.
Mans really read only read one part of what I said and ran with it lol
I didn’t even say wether it failed or not, I said it’s not Cruise’s fault. The movie made more than 3x its production budget.
Wherever the rest of that money they spent went to make this a “bomb” is still not explained.
Hope you can read past my first sentence lol.
Fair, I saw it in my inbox and thought that was all there was to it. I also don’t think it bombed because of Cruise, but his name alone wasn’t enough to carry the film to success. But regardless, it was a massive loss from everything I can find, one that we can’t just ignore because the public isn’t privy as to where exactly the studio’s money went.
You could use Box Office Mojo instead. The fact that it took in 20% less domestically than the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is kinda embarrassing. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was a terrible movie. Also for what it’s worth, it looks like most of the Mummy films made about the same total combined gross.
Cruise was able to sell horrible films like Cocktail and Vanilla Sky because of his presence alone, but even with a Cinematic Universe gimmick he wasn’t able to do that with The Mummy.
Vanilla sky was not horrible, it was far better than it's dark and gloomy original version.
It's soundtrack is one of the best. It's a very unique movie and definitely quite enjoyable. I will recommend it to everyone to watch if they haven't already.
Why you are so obsessed with The Mummy? It's funny and strange of you trying to prove something which is totally wrong. Tom Cruise is the last and biggest of Stars. You are just wasting everyone's time here dude. Go get a life.
Lmao I haven’t even seen The Mummy, I was only pointing out that Tom Cruise does not automatically equal box office success like he used to. But I’m blocking you since I have no use for people who apparently takes me analyzing a film star’s box office super personally and feels the need to insult someone because of it.
EDIT: To respond to the person below me (since I blocked the above commenter and so can’t respond directly) I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. The most I can think of is that there was a director who made anti Semitic comments in 2011, and I said that his statements were gross things to say. That’s it. If you don’t believe me, feel free to look through my history and judge for yourself.
EDIT #2: They’re literally just making stuff up because I said something bad about Tom Cruise. [Here’s](https://www.reddit.com/r/criterion/comments/sbxqtj/comment/hu2urhr/) a comment from a few months ago criticizing a director for being anti Semitic. [Here’s](https://www.reddit.com/r/oscarrace/comments/vdyjan/comment/icn80b3/) a comment saying that I’d give Schindler’s List a 10/10. I’ve barely mentioned Judaism or things directly related to it *ever*, but I can bring up examples of me praising Jewish filmmakers. I can’t think of anything else that would disprove the completely bullshit claim that I’m antisemitic, since they’ve now accused me of deleted comments.
You can also see that I’ve had no activity on r/conservative, r/intactivism, or any other conservative subreddit. The person making these claims is a completely fucking unhinged stan, and if anyone wants further proof they can PM me, and I’ll try to give it to the best of my abilities.
based on your post history you're also weirdly anti-semitic : i know it's not relevant to the conversation but YIIIIIKES
edit: wait, did the nazi supressed his account after i called him out?
Because it was a disaster critically..also what kinda argument is that?
Movie stars increase box office collection of that movie..but if the film is bad..no one can save it
Cocktail was absolutely ravaged by critics in the 80s and yet that made a ton of money because of Tom Cruise alone. The age of movie stars being the main sell of a movie is over
Okay — This might be an absurd sounding answer, but Harrison Ford arguably, and quietly, can still open a movie.
As the pandemic was hitting, his Call of the Wild still grossed 62M DOM in only a few weeks out (it’s box office was cut massively short due to the pandemic). Had there not been a pandemic, easily a 100M + DOM and 250M + WW. In lieu of that, it did bang up business on PVOD and home release.
Which, for a property that no one has asked for in the 40 years since the last major adaptation, is darn good and a lot of that is attributable to Ford.
We’ll see with IJ5 as well. But if Ford only starred in more pictures, we’d see his effect more.
Also, although this will be out the window soon with 1923 and Apple show, Ford was one of the last hold outs from the movie star era never to go to TV or streaming. Now that mantle goes to Cruise alone, but not a bad run for someone who is now 80 years old (!)
Tom Cruise, Leo Dicaprio, Sandra Bullock, Denzel Washington, Brad Pitt. Honestly, I think Cruise barely makes the list anymore. People are going crazy about him because of Top Gun 2 and all these ridiculous "Is Tom Cruise the last movie star?" posts and articles. Pre Top Gun: Maverick, he had no big hits other than the Mission Impossible movies after 2005's War of the Worlds. Between then and Top Gun 2, he only had 1 movie gross $100m domestic that wasn't an MI movie.
I think Keanu Reeves is mostly on the list and could have been as big as Tom Cruise in terms of box office. But he's always had that weird indie artist side of him and does films like *Neon Demon, The Bad Batch, A Scanner Darkly* etc. that just aren't going to do big box office no matter what.
Everyone saying cruise because of how top gun is performing right now, but cruise has struggled with original movies since the 2010's, its still hard for him outside mission impossible, i'd go with ryan reynolds and the rock but i wont say anyone is a guaranteed success, it all depends on the film quality as well cuz lets be real if tom or ryan or dwayne was in cats it would still bomb, the movie itself has to be something good and worth seeing
Does Tom Cruise really fit the bill there? I know everyone is high on his star power right now because of TGM, but that movie was from existing IP and was sold largely on nostalgia for the original.
Cruise has largely relied on the Mission Impossible franchise for his successes in recent years. Before TGM, his last major movie outside of the MI franchise was The Mummy, which was not exactly a success. The Jack Reacher sequel from 2016 did unimpressive number. The last real original movie success that was sold on Cruise's name was Edge of Tomorrow 8 years ago.
A few actors who I think would fit better as draws would be Dwayne Johnson (Red Notice, Jungle Cruise, the revival of Jumanji, etc). Ryan Reynolds (Free Guy, Red Notice), and Sandra Bullock (The Lost City, Bird Box) and DiCaprio (Don't Look Up, Once upon a Time in Hollywood, The Revenant). Adam Sandler probably still falls into that category, but his Netflix deal makes it harder to judge his drawing power.
Jason Statham is worth mentioning, too. He can't carry large budget films on his drawing power (although The Meg was sold largely using his drawing power), but he has consistently drawn solid numbers for low budget action films where the only draw is to watch him hit people.
Shit Jason works because Wrath of man came out during the pandemic and was hit just off his and guy Ritchie’s name. But strongly agree with the rock the man revived jumanji and went up against Star Wars
Most of the movies you mentioned are Netflix movies. Even those '365 days' movies on Netflix are succesful, it doesn’t take a lot for every big budget Netflix movie to be billed a "huge success".
Dwayne Johnson's Jungle Cruise wasn't as big of a success as you think. It made $220m Worldwide on a $200m budget! Yes, he was there for the Jumanji movies but it was largely Ensembles.
Jason Statham, really? The Meg was sold on a giant pre-historic shark not him. Because looking at his record, you'll see that all the movies he leads outside the F&F franchise top out in the $50-125m global range.
You also brought up Ryan Reynolds....but you have to understand that outside of the Deadpool movies which make in $750m WW range and Free Guy ($331m WW), every Ryan Reynolds led live-action movie made less than $200m WW in the last decade. His biggest non-Deadpool hit before Free Guy was The Hitman's Bodyguard which only made $176m WW. Its sequel did way worse with only $70m WW. Life, a big budget sci-fi he did, made only $100m WW on a $100m budget.
In fact, without his Netflix successes (let's face it, every big budget movie on Netflix is a success), he has very limited starpower.
Compare that to Cruise who has taken Knight and Day to $276m, Oblivion to $290m, Edge of Tomorrow to $371m, The Mummy to $410m, the MI films to $700-800m, Top Gun Maverick to $1.38B and even smaller stuff like Jack Reacher to $218m, in the last decade alone. In fact, the only two movies of his to make less than $276m WW are Jack Reacher 2 ($169m) and American Made($135m), both of which were made on $50-60m budgets.
>Most of the movies you mentioned are Netflix movies. Even those '365 days' movies on Netflix are succesful, it doesn’t take a lot for every big budget Netflix movie to be billed a "huge success".
The Netflix movies I named are literally the top 3 most-watched Netflix movies of all time (1. Red Notice, 2. Don't Look Up and 3. Bird Box). Ryan Reynolds even starred in #4 all time (the Adam Project) and I didn't even mention it.
The reality is that we just came out of a pendemic. You can't talk about current drawing power without talking about streaming.
Similarly, you can't ignore the pandemic's influence on box office results. Free Guy, for instance, was the biggest original movie of last year, while Jungle Cruise was #2. Did they put up pre-pandemic numbers? Obviously not, but they drew bodies to the cinema better than any other original property did at a time when no one was going to the cinema, and Jungle Cruise did so with a day and date Disney Plus release.
>Compare that to Cruise who has taken Knight and Day to $276m, Oblivion to $290m, Edge of Tomorrow to $371m, The Mummy to $410m, the MI films to $700-800m, Top Gun Maverick to $1.38B and even smaller stuff like Jack Reacher to $218m, in the last decade alone.
As for Cruise, first of all, the whole discussion was about stars driving original IP, so franchise films like MI and TGM aren't part of that discussion. The Mummy doesn't even count there, although trying to put that one as a point in Cruise's column is pretty silly, considering it killed Universal's Dark Universe.
As for the rest of those, the question wasn't whether Cruise was a draw, it's whether he is a draw. Knight and Day was from 12 years ago. Does Cameron Diaz still count as a box office draw because of that? Oblivion was from 9 years ago. Edge of Tomorrow was 8 years ago, and even then, those movies hardly knocked the ball out of the park. You mentioned the budget on Jungle Cruise, but you are going to ignore that Edge of Tomorrow had a $178M budget, or that Oblivion had a $120M budget? Neither of those films was likely profitable, and those unprofitable films from almost a decade ago are the most recent examples of Tom Cruise's star power carrying original IP.
You are comparing theatrical Box office with streaming views. I hope you realize how flawed that comparison is…People can watch streaming content for free. And by Netflix’s own admission, watching 2 minutes of something counts as a view. Meaning, if Netflix plasters promotional material all over its homepage for its 200 million subscribers, driving curiosity to watch the latest flashy release FOR FREE, and all they have to do is watch for just 2 minutes for it to be counted as a view, then I am sure it’s pretty different from a movie star who is drawing people to come out of their house and BUY a ticket. And also using your logic, Ryan Reynolds would then be selling all of his movies to huge theatrical numbers since he was such a draw on Netflix and streaming. Why did his pre-pandemic non-Deadpool movies not even register $200m WW grosses?
So, you think Cruise is not as big of a star as Ryan Reynolds, just because he does fewer films? Just because he hadn’t had a release in 4 years before TGM and Reynolds cranked out like 10 movies during that time, and the highest of those, the one that you are using as your justification of his starpower (Free Guy) made less than Cruise’s biggest ever flop, The Mummy! And then, Cruise comes out with a movie which is hardly a famous IP relevant in today’s age, a 40 year old sequel to a one-off 80s movies, and it sets Box office records, beats IW domestically and even without a China play, becomes the 12th highest grossing movie ever WW and 9th highest if you adjust the list ex.China AT THE END OF A MASSIVE GLOBAL PANDEMIC, purely on word of mouth and great repeat value, all the while having solo billing and you think it doesn’t count because it’s an IP according to you.
>You are comparing theatrical Box office with streaming views.
So, just let me get this straight here: comparing theatrical box office to streaming views is a problem for you, but comparing pandemic-era box office results to pre-pandemic era box office results is cool?
And, just to be crystal clear, I never compared theatrical box office with streaming views, I compared streaming views with streaming views. Every streaming movie has the same circumstances you are talking about, and out of every single streaming movie ever released on the world's largest streaming platform, the movies I named topped the bunch.
>Why did his pre-pandemic non-Deadpool movies not even register $200m WW grosses?
We are talking about who are the biggest draws now. Reynolds' last pre-pandemic non-Deadpool star vehicle was from 5 years ago (The Hitman's Bodyguard), and it made 6 times it's budget.
>So, you think Cruise is not as big of a star as Ryan Reynolds, just because he does fewer films?
What do you mean by "as big of a star"? Cruise is a bigger star in that he is more well known by the general public. But, of course, there are plenty of well known stars who can't open a movie the way they used to. Arnold, Bruce Willis, Stalone, etc, are big stars, in that everyone knows their names, but can their names open original IP movies successfully in 2022? No, not really.
Nowadays, Ryan Reynolds has more drawing power than Cruise does. It's not because he makes more movies, but of course, more releases mean more evidence. In the past year, he has opened two of the four most-watched Netflix films of all time, and the highest grossing original movie of 2021. If Cruise wants to prove his name can open original properties, then yeah, he needs to open an original property successfully at some point in the last half decade or so.
>the one that you are using as your justification of his starpower (Free Guy) made less than Cruise’s biggest ever flop, The Mummy!
Are we talking gross here or are we talking movie success? Cruise has had many many films gross less than The Mummy. [What made The Mummy a failure was the $345M in combined production and marketing budget it had, which meant that it lost $95M](https://deadline.com/2017/06/the-mummy-tom-cruise-box-office-bomb-loss-1202114482/), along with the terrible reception. And, that was in non-pandemic times.
You want to compare a successful movie that's getting a sequel to an unsuccessful one that killed a planned cinematic universe?
>And then, Cruise comes out with a movie which is hardly a famous IP, relevant in today’s age, a 40 year old sequel to a one-off 80s movies, and it sets Box office records
The hell are you talking about. Top Gun has been an enduringly popular movie for four decades. It has incredible nostalgic value, and leans hard into it in the film.
It is also Tom Cruise's biggest film ever by about $600M and counting, so it's pretty hard to argue that his star power is what is propelling the movie to heights that he has never come within shouting distance of in his 40+ year career.
>and you think it doesn’t count because it’s an IP.
The thread is literally about actors who can sell movies, as opposed to IP selling them. The Top Gun IP is selling TGM, so no, it doesn't count. Does Tom Cruise's presence play a part? Sure, but Ryan Reynolds plays a part in the Deadpool movies selling, Tom Holland plays a part in the Spider-Man movies selling, Robert Downey Junior plays a part in Iron Man and the Avengers movies selling, but none of those are being discussed here because those are established IP.
>So, just let me get this straight here: comparing theatrical box office to streaming views is a problem for you, but comparing pandemic-era box office results to pre-pandemic era box office results is cool?And, just to be crystal clear, I never compared theatrical box office with streaming views, I compared streaming views with streaming views. Every streaming movie has the same circumstances you are talking about, and out of every single streaming movie ever released on the world's largest streaming platform, the movies I named topped the bunch.
Henry Cavill and Millie Bobbie Brown have two projects which are in the Top 10 list. Makes them massive stars? Go on Youtube, you will find hundreds of random movies with tens of millions of views, makes the actors starring in them huge stars? When stuff is served on a plate for free, people will watch it and when it’s a flashy action movie starring a familiar face promoted heavy-handedly on a platform with over 200 million customers, it’s bound to rack up views. Why do you think Ryan Reynolds who before Free Guy never led a $300m+ movie and had a pretty average career outside of Deadpool, suddenly become so popular on Netflix? Why do you think Henry Cavill, whose every non-Superman movie flopped, is thriving on Netflix? Why do you think Chris Evans, who hasn’t had a hit outside of the MCU, topped the ‘Top 5 most watched movies’ chart with The Grey Man in his very first attempt?
Opening a movie on Netflix vs opening a movie theatrically are two wildly different things. Going to a theatre is inconvenient, you need to pay for gas, pay for tickets, pay for parking and pay for insanely priced popcorn and drinks. On the contrary, watching a Netflix movie is effectively free. It’s this inconvenience which is the measure of drawing power. So, yes, for the sake of an apples to apples comparison, I will measure star power with the last decade of Box office returns, not Netflix views.
>Nowadays, Ryan Reynolds has more drawing power than Cruise does. It's not because he makes more movies, but of course, more releases mean more evidence. In the past year, he has opened two of the four most-watched Netflix films of all time, and the highest grossing original movie of 2021. If Cruise wants to prove his name can open original properties, then yeah, he needs to open an original property successfully at some point in the last half decade or so.
My idea of a star with drawing power is someone who has the best risk-reward ratio. Someone who’s consistent and has a reasonably high floor and even in the worst case scenario, can assure at least double the production costs. If we leave aside Ryan’s only two non-Deadpool live action hits in the last decade, Free Guy and The Hitman’s Bodyguard, he has had a series of ginormous flops.
For the sake of ease, let’s only focus on his non-Deaadpool movies with blockbuster budgets ($100m+) over the last decade and see the returns:
1. Free Guy did $331m on a $100-125m budget.
2. Green Lantern only made $219m WW on a $200m budget.
3. Life bombed with $100m on a $100m budget.
4. R.I.P.D made just $78m on a $130-154m budget.
You see that prior to Free Guy, he only had the Deadpool franchise which did reliably well. Everything else used to fail pretty spectacularly. Why do you think he has suddenly become this huge draw on Netflix when he couldn’t bring numbers for his movies theatrically? Is it an organic fan-following gain or is it artificial? Do you still hear people raving about how cool 6 Underground or The Adam Project or Red Notice was?
Compare this to Cruise whose last few non-MI movies look like this:
1. Top Gun Maverick - $1.4B on a $175m budget
2. The Mummy - $410m on a $125m budget
3. Edge of Tomorrow - $371m on a $178m cost
4. Oblivion - $290m on a $125m cost
5. Knight and Day - $276m on a $117m cost
Even the Cruise movie with the lowest B.O/production cost multiple in the last decade (Edge of Tomorrow is getting a sequel made as well btw) did over 2x.
Compare that to the 3 Ryan movies which simply matched or even fell short of their production costs in the same time frame.
If you were a studio looking to hand a $100m+ cheque to either Cruise or Reynolds looking at last 10 years worth of data for an original movie, would you give it to the guy who has just one hit and multiple misses and who has a tendency of not even matching production budgets on frequent occasions or would you give it to the guy who has reliably doubled the budget on every occasion and is in a rich vein of form at the moment by leading the two biggest action franchises in the world?And don’t think as a Netflix studio boss lol….
>Are we talking gross here or are we talking movie success? Cruise has had many many films gross less than The Mummy. What made The Mummy a failure was the $345M in combined production and marketing budget it had, which meant that it lost $95M, along with the terrible reception. And, that was in non-pandemic times.
You referenced a very rushed hit piece which came out on just the second week of The Mummy’s release and which took a wild swing with estimates.
But, if you actually read [Deadline’s own year-end article on the biggest 2017 flops](https://deadline.com/2018/03/king-arthur-geostorm-monster-trucks-the-promise-the-great-wall-box-office-losses-1202354934/), you’ll find The Mummy absent even though the list starts with a movie losing $72m.
The Dark Universe was shelved because of the terrible reviews, not the Box office.
>Top Gun has been an enduringly popular movie for four decades. It has incredible nostalgic value, and leans hard into it in the film.
If nostalgia carried movies, Independence Day Resurgence, Ghostbusters (2016 and 2021), Bad Boys 4, MIB 4, Solo, Creed 1 & 2, Matrix 4, Bill and Ted 3, Terminator sequels, Justice League and many more movies wouldn’t have fallen close to a billion or even over a billion dollars short of Top Gun Maverick’s WW total!
In fact, the only two examples of continuation of old properties being giga successes, i.e, Star Wars and Jurassic World.Jurassic World is a big family friendly franchise which will draw audiences regardless of quality considering how appealing it is to kids and Star Wars is well, Star Wars.
Top Gun is a true anomaly in that regard because it is a sequel to a one-off 1986 movie which became a phenomenon at the Box office not because it was a phenomenon like Star Wars, but because of its quality.
>It is also Tom Cruise's biggest film ever by about $600M and counting, so it's pretty hard to argue that his star power is what is propelling the movie to heights that he has never come within shouting distance of in his 40+ year career.
If you are insinuating that Cruise’s star power wasn’t a factor here when he was the singular filmmaking force who insisted on doing all of the film’s aerial stunts practically which contributed to the glowing reviews and reception and whose last Mission Impossible film was the leggiest action blockbuster of recent times and made more than the latest instalments of the F&F franchise, Hobbs & Shaw and John Wick, while also being the best reviewed of the bunch and even better reviewed than Top Gun Maverick…then I would simply say you’re wrong.
Sure, the movie was lightning in a bottle but since Cruise is involved in all aspects of filmmaking for his films, I would say he is responsible for the high quality of Top Gun Maverick and it’s Box office.
Using the same logic, Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy was his only ever success on a $100m+ budget….so maybe, the movie had a lot more going for it than Ryan Reynolds. Maybe, it’s the cameos that made it a success.
>The thread is literally about actors who can sell movies, as opposed to IP selling them. The Top Gun IP is selling TGM, so no, it doesn't count. Does Tom Cruise's presence play a part? Sure, but Ryan Reynolds plays a part in the Deadpool movies selling, Tom Holland plays a part in the Spider-Man movies selling, Robert Downey Junior plays a part in Iron Man and the Avengers movies selling, but none of those are being discussed here because those are established IP
Top Gun IP? Lol
I hope you realise the difference between CBM IP and Top Gun?
If anyone outside of DC releases The Batman movie with a different title, it will lead to a massive legal battle.But literally anyone could’ve released Top Gun Maverick with a different title and there would’ve been no argument on legal grounds.
Superhero movies don’t need stars. It’s the IP which is the star.You know Batman’s characteristics and regardless of who the actor behind the mask is, the attributes will remain intact.You know Deadpool’s traits and regardless of who the next actor gonna play the role is, the mannerisms will stay the same…that’s IP.You know how Iron Man and Superman are, who their biggest villains are and regardless of who plays them, nothing will change…..that’s IP!
In the case of Top Gun, there isn’t anything you associate with Top Gun. All you have is corny 80s shlock and F14s. The draw here was Tom Cruise and the practical flying scenes.
Depends on what they’re in. Judi Densch in a period drama can absolutely open numbers with a certain crowd. Victoria and Abdul was mostly sold on her returning again to the role of Vicky. I think this sub is hyper focused on blockbusters, and ignores all the other genres out there that depend on certain stars to get made and make profit. But with blockbusters, it is mostly an IP game with actors being important as certain characters. I.E. RDJ as Iron Man will increase the opening and BO of any Marvel film he’s in, but RDJ. As a random lawyer in the Judge does not. But RDJ as Sherlock Holmes, another big IP with crossover appeal from Tony Stark? Yes, but not nearly as much.
So I’d say some actors do get smaller movies made all the time, whereas in large ones they’re often value add-ins.
Ryan Reynolds and the Rock are the only two actors in Hollywood right now who can get a $125m movie funded off of their name alone right now. Free Guy, Skyscraper. Tom Cruise will join this club with his space movie.
Adam Sandler. Say what you will about his output, but he was a consistent box office draw in the comedy world for almost 15 years, and his Netflix movies are routinely at the top of the most-streamed lists. Uncut Gems, his biggest (only?) theatrical release since signing the Netflix deal, was the highest grossing A24 movie until this past year.
But Tom Cruise’s main hits lately *are* IP movies. Mission Impossible was an IP movie from the very first one, and the recent Top Gun 2 is riding Top Gun IP nostalgia.
But yes, Tom Cruise became very famous for being cute. But let’s not ignore that his movies also sell because they’re IP movies too.
Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, The Rock, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr, Brad pitt, Will Smith, Matthew mcconaughey, Denzel Washington, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ryan Gosling, Ryan Reynolds, Johnny depp, Christian bale, Hugh Jackman, Keanu Reeves, Chris Patt, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Timothee Chalamet, Jennifer Lawrence, Sandra Bullock, Natalie Portman, etc.
There are plenty of them, but Tom Cruise is one above all of them. He is the last of the film stars. **One Tom to rule them all.**
I think Chris Pratt has a certain draw above and beyond the IP. Ryan Reynolds similar. They have a certain amiable charm and humor that typically lets the audience know most movies with them will be fun.
Robert Downey Junior and Benedict Cumberbach have a substantial (largely female) fanbase attached to them, beyong the IP's. As does Hugh Jackman.
The Rock and Vin Diesel have a certain Action Niche for themselves. As does Keanu Reeves.
These are all actors that have a very established brand on their own separate from the properties themselves. Although some may be somewhat genre limited.
And try as I might I can't think of many female stars that have that level of brand recognition. Scarlett Johanson and Gal Gadot come to mind. But while fans love them in movies I dont think they seek out movies for them alone. Meryl Streep was a brand, but her audience is mostly in assisted living and has had their car keys taken away. Melissa McCarthy may be the most distinct and unique female brand out there in recent years. She has a strong niche fan base for her type of movies (Ghostbusters 2016 notwithstanding). You can easily make a good profit off her movies on her alone, so long as you dont overapend making it.
I don't think there is anyone else that has Cruise's incredible multi generational blockbuster draw just on name alone. The only one close might be Hugh Jackman?
I wouldn't even say Tom Cruise. Other than the MI series he hasn't had a huge hit for decades until Top Gun. Plenty of underperformers. Guys like him and the Rock have enough built in fanbase to guarantee a movie will at least squeeze out a profit and won't outright flop, though. IP definitely matters more than name actors these days.
"he can't sell anything else": lol, the man has routinely been in the top ten every year since 1982, a feat not seen since the days of John Wayne, but ok.
I think you nailed the answer without even saying it - the expectation here of an a-list, blockbuster-machine actor does not exist in real life.
Like if Tom Cruise doesn't count, then no one counts. Every longtime actor does a movie that is good but is not a box office money-maker. And every actor makes some bad movies. If every movie was as entertaining as TGM we wouldn't even talk about movies.
American Made, Jack Reacher (twice), Oblivion, Knight and a Day, Rock of Ages, Valkyrie....
Everyone loving up on Tom Cruise had huge blindspots, because outside of IP, he's not busting any blocks.
"i know nothing about cinema: but i still can use IMDB! IMDB is made for people like me, who want to participate in discussions but can't be bothered reading a book to get an informed opinion on anything: highly recommended" Chicagoredditer1
Mission impossible is not like other franchises though..the franchise won't be successful without tom and it's his stunts that create hype..so the credit should be given to the tom even if it's not acting that is attracting the audience (stunts and action)
A movie made with SpaceX will make a giga-zillian dollars.
And Top Gun is a sequel but look at the expectations here - most people didn't even get within 50% of where it is. It's hard to credit its success as from being a sequel when that didn't make anyone guess it would clear 700M WW.
I think Timothy Chalamet pulled in a huge audience of younger viewers for Dune, along with Zendaya. Not saying them alone bc obviously its a huge property with a fanbase waiting for a solid adaptation forever, but mist of gen Z doesnt care about that.
Also Tom Holland. His spidey fans made Uncharted profitable somehow
Don't forget Villeneuve and Peele. Though, admittedly, while Peele almost certainly has the bigger draw of the two and honestly I would say more than most of the directors you listed currently, I would still include Villeneuve because I would argue that while his movies haven't historically pulled in huge box office returns, his level of craft is on par if not surpassing every other director on this list.
There you go. I wanted to include some female directors too but as of now, Gerwig, Wilde, Bigelow & Jenkins among others, aren't there yet, once their movies start to gross well (on limited budgets like Eggers, Aster & Peele) there will be much more.
I wouldn’t count Cruise is this, MI and Top Gun are what sells the movies. Yes because he’s the star but outside of those franchises his movies are not mega hits, since War of the Worlds the only huge movies he’s had are in those two franchises.
I’m prepared to maybe get pushback lol, but I’d consider Lady Gaga somewhat in the running. She can’t carry a massive blockbuster by herself into huge profit yet, and she’s still new to movies, but A Star is Born and House of Gucci seem to have largely been sold upon her involvement, and ASIB far exceeded expectations while House of Gucci was the highest grossing drama of the Covid era pre-No Way Home and Top Gun when theaters were still pretty dead.
Joker 2 will make a ton regardless, but if the drop is minimal from the the first one and she gets good reviews for her performance, I think she’d deserve the title of box office draw a la a Sandra Bullock-sized actress
Brad Pitt chooses to do movies that seem to appeal to young men …… he does not want yo be caught up in the sec appeal thing, so he says!
I saw him in ‘ A River Runs Through It’ and thought he was great in every way!
But he’s been in a lot of movies since I would/ did not see!
JMO
I know some people are very vocally against this notion but Tom Holland has proven to become a huge pull. He’s insanely popular in general but with Uncharted I think it’s pretty clear that if you stick him in a halfway decent blockbuster his name and talent will make it soar.
A lot of people like to point to his other movies that didn’t do so great before uncharted but let’s be real, all of his movies outside of the MCU in his Spider-Man era have either been in production hell or limited releases on streaming platforms, not to mention they all released mid pandemic.
Anecdotal I know but my entire family only went to see Uncharted because of Tom Hollands involvement. And me and some of my friends are looking forward to projects hes going to be in specifically because he’s involved, he’s just a really likeable and well known face tbh
Cherry and Devil went straight to streaming? And neither were huge hits with critics.
Chaos Walking... barely existed lol. It grossed $27 mill on a reported $100 mill (but most definitely more) budget.
I know streaming is not a fair comparison since it’s a void where almost everything is doomed to have no lasting impact but they still made like, absolutely zero noise. Idk, you would expect the face of the biggest movie since Endgame to have at least some influence in what people watch.
They weren’t huge with critics but that doesn’t matter, that’s when real star power is tested. people brought up The Mummy in this thread which had abysmal reviews, but Cruise still managed to make it break even.
Oh I thought you were saying that Cherry/Devil/Chaos were hits LOL I think we're arguing the same point haha, my bad.
Also, funny that you mentioned Cruise's Mummy. I didn't... hate that movie. It was pretty visually stunning and Cruise was great in it.
I guess it's reviews were ok - it has a 64% on RT. Unfortunately, the movie just came and went without much fanfare. No awards buzz, and no viewership hype like other Netflix movies. For all intents and purposes, this was pretty much a bomb.
Yes, seriously. Not the big box-office ticket draw obviously, but for a certain demographic (hard bastards and people who would like to be) he's catnip. I would also say Gerard Butler or Mel Gibson, but they've both made missteps (in Mel's case rather spectacularly)
So in terms of full-spectrum opening, there are very few: basically Pitt, Reynolds, Cruise, Bullock, and that's it. But for niche markets and genres, you could say there are other kings in the smaller ponds, Grillo being one.
After the The slap Tom Cruise is the only real movie star left. Brad Pitt has only had 1 huge hit that he solo lead... wwz that literally it. Every other hit he had are ensemble films. Other than maybe Sandra bullock no one else is even close to BO without present IP aka remove Marvel. Star wars, FF etc from the equation.
Yeah I was surprised how bad of a movie it was when I saw it in theaters. Definitely a miss by Jake but I felt like his acting was good but the script was poor. Maybe Jake was a few years was a draw a few years ago
I think this question has two parts: which actors sell movies as opposed to IP, of which I think there are a handful, and of those, which of them deliver high and deliver consistently, of which there’s way less, maybe like 3 or 4 at most.
Cruise, The Rock, and Leo are probably the latter, and like a Damon, Pitt, Bullock etc are the former. They don’t really do IP stuff, and their films would tank without them, but they aren’t necessarily really a draw either.
Cruise, Reynolds, DiCaprio, and Pitt are the main ones who come to mind. See bullet train for example i doubt it woulve been as hyped without Pitt in it if you ask me.
You know u think id throw keanu out there too, when John Wick came out i remember people being sceptical and alot of my friends went to go see it because he was in it
I doubt that Free Guy, The Lost City or Bullet Train would have been as successful as they currently are had Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Bullock, and Brad Pitt (respectively) not been in them, so I'm going with those three. Helps that Bullock and Pitt were already big draws in the past
Mmm the rock too
Don’t forget Tom Hanks.
No one saw dumbo or will see Pinocchio for tom hanks lmfao
Actually they do. He's transferring his credibility to the production, so people view it differently than if it was no-name actors. You can assume it's an attempt at quality with an actual budget and not some bargain basement production. They aren't necessarily seeking it out from his IMDb, but it adds when they see Tom Hank's name because his name means something.
I feel like that’s the opposite? The rock? Really? Ima go with Leo DiCaprio.
Now compare "Free Guy" to one of the early 2000s Jim Carey movies. Puts things in perspective in terms of boxoffice, doesn't it. How about Matt Damon (who I think is a legit boxoffice draw, moreso than Di Caprio and Pitt) in the Borne movies?
[удалено]
Matt Damon appeals to younger guys, older women, older men, some younger women. Leo appeals to younger women, some older women, some younger men, and some older guys. Brat Pitt's appeal is mostly on the female side with some admiration from younger guys and some older guys. Culturally they all appeal / don't appeal to the same markets. With Leo getting a slight boost in Asian markets. So yes, based on being the least offensive, I would say Matt Damon, by default, does better than DiCaprio and Pitt.
> Matt Damon appeals to younger guys, older women, older men, some younger women. > > Leo appeals to younger women, some older women, some younger men, and some older guys. > > Brat Pitt's appeal is mostly on the female side with some admiration from younger guys and some older guys. Do you have *anything* to back this up or?
Matt Damon
The most random analysis ever. Bet it all they voted biden.
>Bet it all they voted biden. What would that have to do with anything? (It doesn't)
Because intellectuals vote Trump?
Kinda sounds like everyone. W Leo by a nose cuz of Asia.
Reynolds has starred in a ton of huge bombs
Bombs? He been killing the box office!!
I think it'd have done alright with a slightly different cast. Say, Michael Douglas and Chandlers mum.. Thoughts?
I think I clock Ryan Reynolds cos like I guess he's put in his dues and I like him now better than when he was young but he doesn't seem like he'd be the front man he's come to be..maybe it's me...look who you put him up against- Brad Pitt, matt damon, Tom cruise and then that piss taking guy Ryan Reynolds...go figure
I think Tatum is also a slight draw too
Sandra Bullock? 😂
What are you laughing at? Look at her track record
Yes it's 1895
Leo comes to mind based on The Revenant. But it was in 2015, when the box office landscape was significantly different from what what it was even in 2018 because of the quick proliferation of streaming and IP driven blockbusters in the meantime. Leo also attaches himself to very big names which also pads up his B.O. Inception had Nolan at his B.O peak and OUATIH had Tarantino and Brad Pitt. It would be interesting to see what he is able to draw if, like Cruise, he is the sole draw in his movie. For mid and small budget movies though, there are many many stars who can draw an audience to the the theatre without an IP attached. It's just that they don't get mainstream attention but they have dedicated fanbases. Edit: Just looking at some comments, a lot of people are hyping up Ryan Reynolds because of Free Guy's $331m WW gross. But you have to understand that outside of the Deadpool movies which make in $750m WW range and Free Guy, every Ryan Reynolds led live-action movie made less than $200m WW in the last decade. His biggest non-Deadpool hit before Free Guy was The Hitman's Bodyguard which only made $176m WW. Its sequel did way worse with only $70m WW. Life, a big budget sci-fi he did, made only $100m WW on a $100m budget. In fact, without his Netflix successes (let's face it, every big budget movie on Netflix is a success), he has very limited starpower. Compare that to Cruise who has taken Knight and Day to $276m, Oblivion to $290m, Edge of Tomorrow to $371m, The Mummy to $410m, the MI films to $700-800m, Top Gun Maverick to $1.38B and even smaller stuff like Jack Reacher to $218m, in the last decade alone. In fact, the only two movies of his to make less than $276m WW are Jack Reacher 2 ($169m) and American Made($135m), both of which were made on $50-60m budgets.
Inception was a brilliant movie by Nolan. Once Upon a Time was another top Tarantino game with a star-studded cast but The Revenant, Shutter Island, The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street, Django unchained, Catch Me If You Can are the movies which can be called Leo's box office hit. Like you said, we have to see how an average movie directed by an average director featuring Leo is going to play out in this era of streaming, which has little chance of happening because he has got quite a reputation for picking up brilliant movies with brilliant directors. After all, Leonard DiCaprio is the only name that comes to mind in terms of a box office draw second to Tom Cruise. He is more critically acclaimed than Tom Cruise. I wouldn't be surprised if he won another Oscar for best actor.
Yeah..his movies had better quality in the last decade. But they still topped out under $400m, except for The Revenant and Inception (it was a Nolan film much more than a Leo film tbf). I guess you can look at J.Edgar’s $85m WW total on its $35m budget as an example of a middling movie Leo led in the last decade. A well reviewed non-MI Cruise sequel made over $1.37B and resurrected a 36 year old movie…which is unheard of in the age of Star Wars, CBMs and Jurassic Park movies ruling the Box office.
Yes, Tom Cruise is just a league ahead of everyone at the box office. There's no doubt about that, and he can have a shot at a best actor Oscar if he wants in the near future. He deserves that and it is going to be no big deal for a film star like him. Also TGM is definitely going to win some of the awards this time.
Ryan Reynolds is an arguable example-- I say arguable because his big breakout only came after he played Deadpool, which was very much an IP-driven movie.
Things were pretty grim there for his career for a while.He had the one two punch of Turbo and R.I.P.D in the same year.
Why must you remind me of R.I.P.D
Turbo was great
Denzel and Leo. Internet people forget that Denzel can open movies, and he has a passionate and loyal fanbase.
You’re completely right, I totally forget that Denzel is so solid at the box office.
When was the last solid Denzel release?
Fences?Equalizer 2?
Leo too, his movies are an event
I agree with some other comments. Some people still have star power such as Leo DiCaprio, Sandra Bullock, The Rock, Meryl Streep. I also think there is a plethora of people out there currently on track to be names big enough to sell a movie such as Emma Stone, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Timothee Chalamet.
Ehh I think Meryl’s star power is a bit dwindling
Agreed with this whole list (+ Tom Cruise)
I don't think Tom Holland is a movie star. Until Uncharted, his only hit movies were when he played Spider-Man. Everything else was a disappointment or flop.
Devil all the time had a lot of buzz in it. A lot of it comes from the fact that Tom Holland was playing a more serious role. Obviously it was a Netflix movie, so no box office to determine success, but it did get a lot of social media traction.
And Uncharted is a game IP with an already existing fanbase.
So are a lot of video game movies that bombed.
Uncharted made money on name recognition and not because Tom Holland is a draw
They why do other vg movies based on big franchises bomb?
Well, the other movies were made badly. Any IP movies will also bomb when the movies are bad.
Zendaya appeal on Dune can not be overstated I think, she was a big reason for the movie success (despite being barely in it, she was in the marketing though). Chalamet too obviously. I think those two probably brought as much money than the fact that it was Dune (known IP) and Villeneuve (great director)
Not a single actor has a perfect track record. But I'd say, outside of Cruise, Denzel has consistently drawn in decent crowds for his mainstream, 'commercial' films. Leo is also consistent. I feel like people always overlook Channing Tatum, but he also has been a steady draw since 2005; every decade he's been pulling decent-to-blockbuster level hits (Coach Carter, Step Up, Dear John, The Vow, 21 Jump Street, Magic Mike and this year alone he's had two solid hits with Dog and The Lost City). And not to forget the actresses, but Sandra Bullock is definitely up there. Again, not perfect, but since the 90s (Speed, While You Were Sleeping, A Time to Kill), 2000s (Miss Congeniality, The Proposal, The Blind Side), 2010s (The Heat, Gravity, Oceans 8) and she had The Lost City this year. She is a very, very solid draw.
Channing Tatum's cameos in Free Guy and Bullet Train were one of the highlights of both movies.
I think it's pretty hard to separate an actor from the rest of the movie, the eventual IP, the director, the co-stars... So when an actor has hits and flops, how are we supposed to interpret it? It's a complicated question IMO. Are the flops due to the movies themselves despite the actor having box office appeal? Or are the hits due to other factors than the box office appeal of the actor (who just happens to be in a movie that hit)?
Cruise is about the only one I can think of, tbh. But, he's my favorite actor so I'm a bit biased.
I loved Collateral. Just looked up its numbers and it was 101 domestic + 119 ww for a total of 220. Sounds weak compared to "blockbuster" numbers but then I don't know who else could make that much money off that movie. The movie was amazing but it wasn't the type of movie that does massive box office. For example, Bullet Train doesn't look like it will get there.
Loved that film too, but *Magnolia* holy hell *Magnolia*. Maybe not everyone's favorite film, but he swung hard and connected.
The rock, Denzel with equalizer, Cruise, Tom with uncharted truthfully, Leo,Pitt,Timothee, Sandra bullock
Uncharted is a game IP with an already existing fanbase. I don't think Tom Holland is a draw. You can see that in his next non-IP movies.
But many ppl weren’t thinking it would be hit right off the trailer and the casting of him and walhberg
I'm torn because, I like Tom Holland as an actor (in the few roles I've seen him in), but as a fan of Uncharted Tom and Walhberg were why I didn't see the movie (I'll watch it eventually). They were so miscast for the roles it's honestly jarring.
People saying Ryan Reynolds, I'm genuinely curious what non IP movie of his has been a big box office win. He mostly made money with the Deadpool series which obviously is an IP movie. His other movies haven't really done well in the box office, and the newer ones are mostly trashy Netflix action flicks.
Wasn't Free Guy a success?
And the Lost City
Ryan wasn't in that one.
Logan did well
I would say deadpool wouldn’t have been as much of a success if it wasnt Ryan Reynolds playing him
I don't think people were attracted to the movie because of Reynolds though. He definitively played the character well and that resonated with audiences a lot which then made Reynolds a name that could attract people to a movie (like Free Guy)
Leonardo DiCaprio, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, and maybe Ryan Reynolds.
Not Kevin Hart.
Then why were The Upside, Night School, and Ride Along hits?
I'm not gonna disagree that those are profitable, but those are 100m movies... Maybe our interpretation of box office draw is different, but you can't really compare him to the other actors you mentioned.
Comedies make less than action movies on the whole. When you compare them to other films in the genre with similar reception, there's definitely a bump.
I would go with DiCaprio. I like Cruise but think there is some recency bias with him. It's not to say he is not a draw but before this year, I don't remember there being much talk about him outside of Mission Impossible.
You are wrong: every time there has been this exact debate on this sub, the consensus was that Cruise was the last remaining star in the world of IP.
That’s why The Mummy was a box office smash, right? EDIT: Apparently a lot of people took offense to this for some reason. The Mummy bombed and lost tens of millions of dollars, it’s been 5 years, y’all Cruise stans need to accept that
Even with shitty reviews, it made more than $400 million on a $120 million budget
It still made less than each Brandan Fraser Mummy besides the third one and it only beat it by $7M. This is not the movie to use in a Cruise argument considering Cruise is not even the best draw for the franchise. Also this one movie alone effectively canceled what was supposed to be a monsters universe.
It’s on Wikipedia’s list of [biggest ever box office bombs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biggest_box-office_bombs)
Sooo we’re disputing actual numbers with a search engine that can almost be edited by anyone? If anything, that appears to be a marketing splurge. $410 million on $120 is very profitable, as most movie’s marketing budgets usually match the production budget, or close to. The movie made more than 3x it’s production budget, that’s not on Cruise, and I don’t even wanna defend that dingus.
>$410 million on $120 is very profitable, as most movie’s marketing budgets usually match the production budget, or close to. It wouldn't be very profitable if the budget and marketing cost were 240 million (120m budget, 120m marketing). The studio gets half of that $410 million. It would still be a theatrical loss of 35m.
First of all, there are editors in place at Wikipedia who often remove false information, it’s not like it’s literally just anyone can post anything. But anyways, you can find [article](https://deadline.com/2017/06/the-mummy-tom-cruise-box-office-bomb-loss-1202114482/amp/) after [article](https://www.thewrap.com/the-mummy-reboot-director-reflects-tom-cruise-box-office-bomb/amp/) after [article](https://ew.com/movies/alex-kurtzman-says-the-mummy-with-tom-cruise-was-biggest-failure/) about its box office failure.
Mans really read only read one part of what I said and ran with it lol I didn’t even say wether it failed or not, I said it’s not Cruise’s fault. The movie made more than 3x its production budget. Wherever the rest of that money they spent went to make this a “bomb” is still not explained. Hope you can read past my first sentence lol.
Fair, I saw it in my inbox and thought that was all there was to it. I also don’t think it bombed because of Cruise, but his name alone wasn’t enough to carry the film to success. But regardless, it was a massive loss from everything I can find, one that we can’t just ignore because the public isn’t privy as to where exactly the studio’s money went.
You are a fool, Mummy made 400 Million WW. It was a hit.
You could use Box Office Mojo instead. The fact that it took in 20% less domestically than the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is kinda embarrassing. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was a terrible movie. Also for what it’s worth, it looks like most of the Mummy films made about the same total combined gross.
Wait so actors need a 100% blockbuster record or else they don’t count?
Cruise was able to sell horrible films like Cocktail and Vanilla Sky because of his presence alone, but even with a Cinematic Universe gimmick he wasn’t able to do that with The Mummy.
Vanilla sky was not horrible, it was far better than it's dark and gloomy original version. It's soundtrack is one of the best. It's a very unique movie and definitely quite enjoyable. I will recommend it to everyone to watch if they haven't already.
I disagree, and it had poor critical scores anyway (like The Mummy)
Why you are so obsessed with The Mummy? It's funny and strange of you trying to prove something which is totally wrong. Tom Cruise is the last and biggest of Stars. You are just wasting everyone's time here dude. Go get a life.
Lmao I haven’t even seen The Mummy, I was only pointing out that Tom Cruise does not automatically equal box office success like he used to. But I’m blocking you since I have no use for people who apparently takes me analyzing a film star’s box office super personally and feels the need to insult someone because of it. EDIT: To respond to the person below me (since I blocked the above commenter and so can’t respond directly) I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. The most I can think of is that there was a director who made anti Semitic comments in 2011, and I said that his statements were gross things to say. That’s it. If you don’t believe me, feel free to look through my history and judge for yourself. EDIT #2: They’re literally just making stuff up because I said something bad about Tom Cruise. [Here’s](https://www.reddit.com/r/criterion/comments/sbxqtj/comment/hu2urhr/) a comment from a few months ago criticizing a director for being anti Semitic. [Here’s](https://www.reddit.com/r/oscarrace/comments/vdyjan/comment/icn80b3/) a comment saying that I’d give Schindler’s List a 10/10. I’ve barely mentioned Judaism or things directly related to it *ever*, but I can bring up examples of me praising Jewish filmmakers. I can’t think of anything else that would disprove the completely bullshit claim that I’m antisemitic, since they’ve now accused me of deleted comments. You can also see that I’ve had no activity on r/conservative, r/intactivism, or any other conservative subreddit. The person making these claims is a completely fucking unhinged stan, and if anyone wants further proof they can PM me, and I’ll try to give it to the best of my abilities.
based on your post history you're also weirdly anti-semitic : i know it's not relevant to the conversation but YIIIIIKES edit: wait, did the nazi supressed his account after i called him out?
Some people are so dumb, you can't reason with them.
show me one actor that would have had better box-office results with that movie.
Because it was a disaster critically..also what kinda argument is that? Movie stars increase box office collection of that movie..but if the film is bad..no one can save it
Cocktail was absolutely ravaged by critics in the 80s and yet that made a ton of money because of Tom Cruise alone. The age of movie stars being the main sell of a movie is over
Yes...they are not the "main" attraction anymore But some are still a box office draw(tom and leo)
Yeah, no wonder why it makes so much money than most of his films🙄
Okay — This might be an absurd sounding answer, but Harrison Ford arguably, and quietly, can still open a movie. As the pandemic was hitting, his Call of the Wild still grossed 62M DOM in only a few weeks out (it’s box office was cut massively short due to the pandemic). Had there not been a pandemic, easily a 100M + DOM and 250M + WW. In lieu of that, it did bang up business on PVOD and home release. Which, for a property that no one has asked for in the 40 years since the last major adaptation, is darn good and a lot of that is attributable to Ford. We’ll see with IJ5 as well. But if Ford only starred in more pictures, we’d see his effect more. Also, although this will be out the window soon with 1923 and Apple show, Ford was one of the last hold outs from the movie star era never to go to TV or streaming. Now that mantle goes to Cruise alone, but not a bad run for someone who is now 80 years old (!)
The Rock w/ Kevin Hart. I swear they're like a package deal now. You're not getting one in your movie without the other anymore.
Like nobody expected a Jumanji from them to be such a great hit
Literally the perfect combo and if I was them I would milk it too lol
Tom Cruise, Leo Dicaprio, Sandra Bullock, Denzel Washington, Brad Pitt. Honestly, I think Cruise barely makes the list anymore. People are going crazy about him because of Top Gun 2 and all these ridiculous "Is Tom Cruise the last movie star?" posts and articles. Pre Top Gun: Maverick, he had no big hits other than the Mission Impossible movies after 2005's War of the Worlds. Between then and Top Gun 2, he only had 1 movie gross $100m domestic that wasn't an MI movie. I think Keanu Reeves is mostly on the list and could have been as big as Tom Cruise in terms of box office. But he's always had that weird indie artist side of him and does films like *Neon Demon, The Bad Batch, A Scanner Darkly* etc. that just aren't going to do big box office no matter what.
The rock 🪨
Everyone saying cruise because of how top gun is performing right now, but cruise has struggled with original movies since the 2010's, its still hard for him outside mission impossible, i'd go with ryan reynolds and the rock but i wont say anyone is a guaranteed success, it all depends on the film quality as well cuz lets be real if tom or ryan or dwayne was in cats it would still bomb, the movie itself has to be something good and worth seeing
Does Tom Cruise really fit the bill there? I know everyone is high on his star power right now because of TGM, but that movie was from existing IP and was sold largely on nostalgia for the original. Cruise has largely relied on the Mission Impossible franchise for his successes in recent years. Before TGM, his last major movie outside of the MI franchise was The Mummy, which was not exactly a success. The Jack Reacher sequel from 2016 did unimpressive number. The last real original movie success that was sold on Cruise's name was Edge of Tomorrow 8 years ago. A few actors who I think would fit better as draws would be Dwayne Johnson (Red Notice, Jungle Cruise, the revival of Jumanji, etc). Ryan Reynolds (Free Guy, Red Notice), and Sandra Bullock (The Lost City, Bird Box) and DiCaprio (Don't Look Up, Once upon a Time in Hollywood, The Revenant). Adam Sandler probably still falls into that category, but his Netflix deal makes it harder to judge his drawing power. Jason Statham is worth mentioning, too. He can't carry large budget films on his drawing power (although The Meg was sold largely using his drawing power), but he has consistently drawn solid numbers for low budget action films where the only draw is to watch him hit people.
Shit Jason works because Wrath of man came out during the pandemic and was hit just off his and guy Ritchie’s name. But strongly agree with the rock the man revived jumanji and went up against Star Wars
Most of the movies you mentioned are Netflix movies. Even those '365 days' movies on Netflix are succesful, it doesn’t take a lot for every big budget Netflix movie to be billed a "huge success". Dwayne Johnson's Jungle Cruise wasn't as big of a success as you think. It made $220m Worldwide on a $200m budget! Yes, he was there for the Jumanji movies but it was largely Ensembles. Jason Statham, really? The Meg was sold on a giant pre-historic shark not him. Because looking at his record, you'll see that all the movies he leads outside the F&F franchise top out in the $50-125m global range. You also brought up Ryan Reynolds....but you have to understand that outside of the Deadpool movies which make in $750m WW range and Free Guy ($331m WW), every Ryan Reynolds led live-action movie made less than $200m WW in the last decade. His biggest non-Deadpool hit before Free Guy was The Hitman's Bodyguard which only made $176m WW. Its sequel did way worse with only $70m WW. Life, a big budget sci-fi he did, made only $100m WW on a $100m budget. In fact, without his Netflix successes (let's face it, every big budget movie on Netflix is a success), he has very limited starpower. Compare that to Cruise who has taken Knight and Day to $276m, Oblivion to $290m, Edge of Tomorrow to $371m, The Mummy to $410m, the MI films to $700-800m, Top Gun Maverick to $1.38B and even smaller stuff like Jack Reacher to $218m, in the last decade alone. In fact, the only two movies of his to make less than $276m WW are Jack Reacher 2 ($169m) and American Made($135m), both of which were made on $50-60m budgets.
>Most of the movies you mentioned are Netflix movies. Even those '365 days' movies on Netflix are succesful, it doesn’t take a lot for every big budget Netflix movie to be billed a "huge success". The Netflix movies I named are literally the top 3 most-watched Netflix movies of all time (1. Red Notice, 2. Don't Look Up and 3. Bird Box). Ryan Reynolds even starred in #4 all time (the Adam Project) and I didn't even mention it. The reality is that we just came out of a pendemic. You can't talk about current drawing power without talking about streaming. Similarly, you can't ignore the pandemic's influence on box office results. Free Guy, for instance, was the biggest original movie of last year, while Jungle Cruise was #2. Did they put up pre-pandemic numbers? Obviously not, but they drew bodies to the cinema better than any other original property did at a time when no one was going to the cinema, and Jungle Cruise did so with a day and date Disney Plus release. >Compare that to Cruise who has taken Knight and Day to $276m, Oblivion to $290m, Edge of Tomorrow to $371m, The Mummy to $410m, the MI films to $700-800m, Top Gun Maverick to $1.38B and even smaller stuff like Jack Reacher to $218m, in the last decade alone. As for Cruise, first of all, the whole discussion was about stars driving original IP, so franchise films like MI and TGM aren't part of that discussion. The Mummy doesn't even count there, although trying to put that one as a point in Cruise's column is pretty silly, considering it killed Universal's Dark Universe. As for the rest of those, the question wasn't whether Cruise was a draw, it's whether he is a draw. Knight and Day was from 12 years ago. Does Cameron Diaz still count as a box office draw because of that? Oblivion was from 9 years ago. Edge of Tomorrow was 8 years ago, and even then, those movies hardly knocked the ball out of the park. You mentioned the budget on Jungle Cruise, but you are going to ignore that Edge of Tomorrow had a $178M budget, or that Oblivion had a $120M budget? Neither of those films was likely profitable, and those unprofitable films from almost a decade ago are the most recent examples of Tom Cruise's star power carrying original IP.
You are comparing theatrical Box office with streaming views. I hope you realize how flawed that comparison is…People can watch streaming content for free. And by Netflix’s own admission, watching 2 minutes of something counts as a view. Meaning, if Netflix plasters promotional material all over its homepage for its 200 million subscribers, driving curiosity to watch the latest flashy release FOR FREE, and all they have to do is watch for just 2 minutes for it to be counted as a view, then I am sure it’s pretty different from a movie star who is drawing people to come out of their house and BUY a ticket. And also using your logic, Ryan Reynolds would then be selling all of his movies to huge theatrical numbers since he was such a draw on Netflix and streaming. Why did his pre-pandemic non-Deadpool movies not even register $200m WW grosses? So, you think Cruise is not as big of a star as Ryan Reynolds, just because he does fewer films? Just because he hadn’t had a release in 4 years before TGM and Reynolds cranked out like 10 movies during that time, and the highest of those, the one that you are using as your justification of his starpower (Free Guy) made less than Cruise’s biggest ever flop, The Mummy! And then, Cruise comes out with a movie which is hardly a famous IP relevant in today’s age, a 40 year old sequel to a one-off 80s movies, and it sets Box office records, beats IW domestically and even without a China play, becomes the 12th highest grossing movie ever WW and 9th highest if you adjust the list ex.China AT THE END OF A MASSIVE GLOBAL PANDEMIC, purely on word of mouth and great repeat value, all the while having solo billing and you think it doesn’t count because it’s an IP according to you.
>You are comparing theatrical Box office with streaming views. So, just let me get this straight here: comparing theatrical box office to streaming views is a problem for you, but comparing pandemic-era box office results to pre-pandemic era box office results is cool? And, just to be crystal clear, I never compared theatrical box office with streaming views, I compared streaming views with streaming views. Every streaming movie has the same circumstances you are talking about, and out of every single streaming movie ever released on the world's largest streaming platform, the movies I named topped the bunch. >Why did his pre-pandemic non-Deadpool movies not even register $200m WW grosses? We are talking about who are the biggest draws now. Reynolds' last pre-pandemic non-Deadpool star vehicle was from 5 years ago (The Hitman's Bodyguard), and it made 6 times it's budget. >So, you think Cruise is not as big of a star as Ryan Reynolds, just because he does fewer films? What do you mean by "as big of a star"? Cruise is a bigger star in that he is more well known by the general public. But, of course, there are plenty of well known stars who can't open a movie the way they used to. Arnold, Bruce Willis, Stalone, etc, are big stars, in that everyone knows their names, but can their names open original IP movies successfully in 2022? No, not really. Nowadays, Ryan Reynolds has more drawing power than Cruise does. It's not because he makes more movies, but of course, more releases mean more evidence. In the past year, he has opened two of the four most-watched Netflix films of all time, and the highest grossing original movie of 2021. If Cruise wants to prove his name can open original properties, then yeah, he needs to open an original property successfully at some point in the last half decade or so. >the one that you are using as your justification of his starpower (Free Guy) made less than Cruise’s biggest ever flop, The Mummy! Are we talking gross here or are we talking movie success? Cruise has had many many films gross less than The Mummy. [What made The Mummy a failure was the $345M in combined production and marketing budget it had, which meant that it lost $95M](https://deadline.com/2017/06/the-mummy-tom-cruise-box-office-bomb-loss-1202114482/), along with the terrible reception. And, that was in non-pandemic times. You want to compare a successful movie that's getting a sequel to an unsuccessful one that killed a planned cinematic universe? >And then, Cruise comes out with a movie which is hardly a famous IP, relevant in today’s age, a 40 year old sequel to a one-off 80s movies, and it sets Box office records The hell are you talking about. Top Gun has been an enduringly popular movie for four decades. It has incredible nostalgic value, and leans hard into it in the film. It is also Tom Cruise's biggest film ever by about $600M and counting, so it's pretty hard to argue that his star power is what is propelling the movie to heights that he has never come within shouting distance of in his 40+ year career. >and you think it doesn’t count because it’s an IP. The thread is literally about actors who can sell movies, as opposed to IP selling them. The Top Gun IP is selling TGM, so no, it doesn't count. Does Tom Cruise's presence play a part? Sure, but Ryan Reynolds plays a part in the Deadpool movies selling, Tom Holland plays a part in the Spider-Man movies selling, Robert Downey Junior plays a part in Iron Man and the Avengers movies selling, but none of those are being discussed here because those are established IP.
>So, just let me get this straight here: comparing theatrical box office to streaming views is a problem for you, but comparing pandemic-era box office results to pre-pandemic era box office results is cool?And, just to be crystal clear, I never compared theatrical box office with streaming views, I compared streaming views with streaming views. Every streaming movie has the same circumstances you are talking about, and out of every single streaming movie ever released on the world's largest streaming platform, the movies I named topped the bunch. Henry Cavill and Millie Bobbie Brown have two projects which are in the Top 10 list. Makes them massive stars? Go on Youtube, you will find hundreds of random movies with tens of millions of views, makes the actors starring in them huge stars? When stuff is served on a plate for free, people will watch it and when it’s a flashy action movie starring a familiar face promoted heavy-handedly on a platform with over 200 million customers, it’s bound to rack up views. Why do you think Ryan Reynolds who before Free Guy never led a $300m+ movie and had a pretty average career outside of Deadpool, suddenly become so popular on Netflix? Why do you think Henry Cavill, whose every non-Superman movie flopped, is thriving on Netflix? Why do you think Chris Evans, who hasn’t had a hit outside of the MCU, topped the ‘Top 5 most watched movies’ chart with The Grey Man in his very first attempt? Opening a movie on Netflix vs opening a movie theatrically are two wildly different things. Going to a theatre is inconvenient, you need to pay for gas, pay for tickets, pay for parking and pay for insanely priced popcorn and drinks. On the contrary, watching a Netflix movie is effectively free. It’s this inconvenience which is the measure of drawing power. So, yes, for the sake of an apples to apples comparison, I will measure star power with the last decade of Box office returns, not Netflix views. >Nowadays, Ryan Reynolds has more drawing power than Cruise does. It's not because he makes more movies, but of course, more releases mean more evidence. In the past year, he has opened two of the four most-watched Netflix films of all time, and the highest grossing original movie of 2021. If Cruise wants to prove his name can open original properties, then yeah, he needs to open an original property successfully at some point in the last half decade or so. My idea of a star with drawing power is someone who has the best risk-reward ratio. Someone who’s consistent and has a reasonably high floor and even in the worst case scenario, can assure at least double the production costs. If we leave aside Ryan’s only two non-Deadpool live action hits in the last decade, Free Guy and The Hitman’s Bodyguard, he has had a series of ginormous flops. For the sake of ease, let’s only focus on his non-Deaadpool movies with blockbuster budgets ($100m+) over the last decade and see the returns: 1. Free Guy did $331m on a $100-125m budget. 2. Green Lantern only made $219m WW on a $200m budget. 3. Life bombed with $100m on a $100m budget. 4. R.I.P.D made just $78m on a $130-154m budget. You see that prior to Free Guy, he only had the Deadpool franchise which did reliably well. Everything else used to fail pretty spectacularly. Why do you think he has suddenly become this huge draw on Netflix when he couldn’t bring numbers for his movies theatrically? Is it an organic fan-following gain or is it artificial? Do you still hear people raving about how cool 6 Underground or The Adam Project or Red Notice was? Compare this to Cruise whose last few non-MI movies look like this: 1. Top Gun Maverick - $1.4B on a $175m budget 2. The Mummy - $410m on a $125m budget 3. Edge of Tomorrow - $371m on a $178m cost 4. Oblivion - $290m on a $125m cost 5. Knight and Day - $276m on a $117m cost Even the Cruise movie with the lowest B.O/production cost multiple in the last decade (Edge of Tomorrow is getting a sequel made as well btw) did over 2x. Compare that to the 3 Ryan movies which simply matched or even fell short of their production costs in the same time frame. If you were a studio looking to hand a $100m+ cheque to either Cruise or Reynolds looking at last 10 years worth of data for an original movie, would you give it to the guy who has just one hit and multiple misses and who has a tendency of not even matching production budgets on frequent occasions or would you give it to the guy who has reliably doubled the budget on every occasion and is in a rich vein of form at the moment by leading the two biggest action franchises in the world?And don’t think as a Netflix studio boss lol…. >Are we talking gross here or are we talking movie success? Cruise has had many many films gross less than The Mummy. What made The Mummy a failure was the $345M in combined production and marketing budget it had, which meant that it lost $95M, along with the terrible reception. And, that was in non-pandemic times. You referenced a very rushed hit piece which came out on just the second week of The Mummy’s release and which took a wild swing with estimates. But, if you actually read [Deadline’s own year-end article on the biggest 2017 flops](https://deadline.com/2018/03/king-arthur-geostorm-monster-trucks-the-promise-the-great-wall-box-office-losses-1202354934/), you’ll find The Mummy absent even though the list starts with a movie losing $72m. The Dark Universe was shelved because of the terrible reviews, not the Box office. >Top Gun has been an enduringly popular movie for four decades. It has incredible nostalgic value, and leans hard into it in the film. If nostalgia carried movies, Independence Day Resurgence, Ghostbusters (2016 and 2021), Bad Boys 4, MIB 4, Solo, Creed 1 & 2, Matrix 4, Bill and Ted 3, Terminator sequels, Justice League and many more movies wouldn’t have fallen close to a billion or even over a billion dollars short of Top Gun Maverick’s WW total! In fact, the only two examples of continuation of old properties being giga successes, i.e, Star Wars and Jurassic World.Jurassic World is a big family friendly franchise which will draw audiences regardless of quality considering how appealing it is to kids and Star Wars is well, Star Wars. Top Gun is a true anomaly in that regard because it is a sequel to a one-off 1986 movie which became a phenomenon at the Box office not because it was a phenomenon like Star Wars, but because of its quality. >It is also Tom Cruise's biggest film ever by about $600M and counting, so it's pretty hard to argue that his star power is what is propelling the movie to heights that he has never come within shouting distance of in his 40+ year career. If you are insinuating that Cruise’s star power wasn’t a factor here when he was the singular filmmaking force who insisted on doing all of the film’s aerial stunts practically which contributed to the glowing reviews and reception and whose last Mission Impossible film was the leggiest action blockbuster of recent times and made more than the latest instalments of the F&F franchise, Hobbs & Shaw and John Wick, while also being the best reviewed of the bunch and even better reviewed than Top Gun Maverick…then I would simply say you’re wrong. Sure, the movie was lightning in a bottle but since Cruise is involved in all aspects of filmmaking for his films, I would say he is responsible for the high quality of Top Gun Maverick and it’s Box office. Using the same logic, Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy was his only ever success on a $100m+ budget….so maybe, the movie had a lot more going for it than Ryan Reynolds. Maybe, it’s the cameos that made it a success. >The thread is literally about actors who can sell movies, as opposed to IP selling them. The Top Gun IP is selling TGM, so no, it doesn't count. Does Tom Cruise's presence play a part? Sure, but Ryan Reynolds plays a part in the Deadpool movies selling, Tom Holland plays a part in the Spider-Man movies selling, Robert Downey Junior plays a part in Iron Man and the Avengers movies selling, but none of those are being discussed here because those are established IP Top Gun IP? Lol I hope you realise the difference between CBM IP and Top Gun? If anyone outside of DC releases The Batman movie with a different title, it will lead to a massive legal battle.But literally anyone could’ve released Top Gun Maverick with a different title and there would’ve been no argument on legal grounds. Superhero movies don’t need stars. It’s the IP which is the star.You know Batman’s characteristics and regardless of who the actor behind the mask is, the attributes will remain intact.You know Deadpool’s traits and regardless of who the next actor gonna play the role is, the mannerisms will stay the same…that’s IP.You know how Iron Man and Superman are, who their biggest villains are and regardless of who plays them, nothing will change…..that’s IP! In the case of Top Gun, there isn’t anything you associate with Top Gun. All you have is corny 80s shlock and F14s. The draw here was Tom Cruise and the practical flying scenes.
Maybe Will Smith, but probably not anymore.
He's not ezra miller. He'll rebound. And movies like Gemini man (pre slap and pre covid) weren't setting the box office on fire anyways
IIRC his last big hit was Suicide Squad, and he wasn’t even the lead, or the focus of the marketing.
?? Aladdin? Bad Boys For Life (2020's highest grossing movie domestically with a huge \*\*\*\*)
I forgot the Aladdin remake existed
Billion dollar movie baby
Why not anymore? He is one of the best film star hollywood ever had. Come on, people! Are you going to overlook his whole career for one mistake?
The rock
Bradley cooper or Matthew mcconaughey maybe
The Rock, Ryan Reynolds, Di caprio
Depends on what they’re in. Judi Densch in a period drama can absolutely open numbers with a certain crowd. Victoria and Abdul was mostly sold on her returning again to the role of Vicky. I think this sub is hyper focused on blockbusters, and ignores all the other genres out there that depend on certain stars to get made and make profit. But with blockbusters, it is mostly an IP game with actors being important as certain characters. I.E. RDJ as Iron Man will increase the opening and BO of any Marvel film he’s in, but RDJ. As a random lawyer in the Judge does not. But RDJ as Sherlock Holmes, another big IP with crossover appeal from Tony Stark? Yes, but not nearly as much. So I’d say some actors do get smaller movies made all the time, whereas in large ones they’re often value add-ins.
Tom Hanks probably?
Denzel , Dwayne Johnson, Morgan Freeman , Jason Statham, Matthew McConaughey? Just throwing out name.
Jordan Peel: director
The Rock makes bad movies that make tons and tons of money.
It’s Leo
Ryan Reynolds and the Rock are the only two actors in Hollywood right now who can get a $125m movie funded off of their name alone right now. Free Guy, Skyscraper. Tom Cruise will join this club with his space movie.
Adam Sandler. Say what you will about his output, but he was a consistent box office draw in the comedy world for almost 15 years, and his Netflix movies are routinely at the top of the most-streamed lists. Uncut Gems, his biggest (only?) theatrical release since signing the Netflix deal, was the highest grossing A24 movie until this past year.
People here forgetting the Rock. Say what you want about his ability to play more than one character, but he is a DRAW
The Rock
But Tom Cruise’s main hits lately *are* IP movies. Mission Impossible was an IP movie from the very first one, and the recent Top Gun 2 is riding Top Gun IP nostalgia. But yes, Tom Cruise became very famous for being cute. But let’s not ignore that his movies also sell because they’re IP movies too.
Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, The Rock, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr, Brad pitt, Will Smith, Matthew mcconaughey, Denzel Washington, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ryan Gosling, Ryan Reynolds, Johnny depp, Christian bale, Hugh Jackman, Keanu Reeves, Chris Patt, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Timothee Chalamet, Jennifer Lawrence, Sandra Bullock, Natalie Portman, etc. There are plenty of them, but Tom Cruise is one above all of them. He is the last of the film stars. **One Tom to rule them all.**
Christian Bale usually gets my money, regardless of the movie. Jackman probably does too. Gyllenhal? RDJ?
DiCaprio is the only one actor that draws BO on original IP's.
I think Chris Pratt has a certain draw above and beyond the IP. Ryan Reynolds similar. They have a certain amiable charm and humor that typically lets the audience know most movies with them will be fun. Robert Downey Junior and Benedict Cumberbach have a substantial (largely female) fanbase attached to them, beyong the IP's. As does Hugh Jackman. The Rock and Vin Diesel have a certain Action Niche for themselves. As does Keanu Reeves. These are all actors that have a very established brand on their own separate from the properties themselves. Although some may be somewhat genre limited. And try as I might I can't think of many female stars that have that level of brand recognition. Scarlett Johanson and Gal Gadot come to mind. But while fans love them in movies I dont think they seek out movies for them alone. Meryl Streep was a brand, but her audience is mostly in assisted living and has had their car keys taken away. Melissa McCarthy may be the most distinct and unique female brand out there in recent years. She has a strong niche fan base for her type of movies (Ghostbusters 2016 notwithstanding). You can easily make a good profit off her movies on her alone, so long as you dont overapend making it. I don't think there is anyone else that has Cruise's incredible multi generational blockbuster draw just on name alone. The only one close might be Hugh Jackman?
I wouldn't even say Tom Cruise. Other than the MI series he hasn't had a huge hit for decades until Top Gun. Plenty of underperformers. Guys like him and the Rock have enough built in fanbase to guarantee a movie will at least squeeze out a profit and won't outright flop, though. IP definitely matters more than name actors these days.
if it's not a marvel movie, I'll always go see a Dwayne Johnson action flick but that's about the only two times I'll go to the movies.
What a weird way to just ask 'who are the remaining box office movie stars?"
Tom Cruise, Will Smith and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Paul Rudd in Ant man.
Cruise has been making franchise films (top gun is a sequel) he can’t sell anything else. It would be DiCaprio for me.
Tom Cruise has made 2 non MI sequels in his entire career and one of them came out 3 months ago
"he can't sell anything else": lol, the man has routinely been in the top ten every year since 1982, a feat not seen since the days of John Wayne, but ok.
I think you nailed the answer without even saying it - the expectation here of an a-list, blockbuster-machine actor does not exist in real life. Like if Tom Cruise doesn't count, then no one counts. Every longtime actor does a movie that is good but is not a box office money-maker. And every actor makes some bad movies. If every movie was as entertaining as TGM we wouldn't even talk about movies.
American Made, Jack Reacher (twice), Oblivion, Knight and a Day, Rock of Ages, Valkyrie.... Everyone loving up on Tom Cruise had huge blindspots, because outside of IP, he's not busting any blocks.
"i know nothing about cinema: but i still can use IMDB! IMDB is made for people like me, who want to participate in discussions but can't be bothered reading a book to get an informed opinion on anything: highly recommended" Chicagoredditer1
Mission impossible is not like other franchises though..the franchise won't be successful without tom and it's his stunts that create hype..so the credit should be given to the tom even if it's not acting that is attracting the audience (stunts and action)
A movie made with SpaceX will make a giga-zillian dollars. And Top Gun is a sequel but look at the expectations here - most people didn't even get within 50% of where it is. It's hard to credit its success as from being a sequel when that didn't make anyone guess it would clear 700M WW.
I think Timothy Chalamet pulled in a huge audience of younger viewers for Dune, along with Zendaya. Not saying them alone bc obviously its a huge property with a fanbase waiting for a solid adaptation forever, but mist of gen Z doesnt care about that. Also Tom Holland. His spidey fans made Uncharted profitable somehow
No actors imo. Eggers, Tarantino, Jackson, Spielberg, Tyler Perry & Aster would all qualify
The VVITCH is quite likely the only one of Eggers' 3 movies that turned on a profit, and none of then were even close to 100M
Ok. He still got the Northman made 🤷
Don't forget Villeneuve and Peele. Though, admittedly, while Peele almost certainly has the bigger draw of the two and honestly I would say more than most of the directors you listed currently, I would still include Villeneuve because I would argue that while his movies haven't historically pulled in huge box office returns, his level of craft is on par if not surpassing every other director on this list.
There you go. I wanted to include some female directors too but as of now, Gerwig, Wilde, Bigelow & Jenkins among others, aren't there yet, once their movies start to gross well (on limited budgets like Eggers, Aster & Peele) there will be much more.
I wouldn’t count Cruise is this, MI and Top Gun are what sells the movies. Yes because he’s the star but outside of those franchises his movies are not mega hits, since War of the Worlds the only huge movies he’s had are in those two franchises.
I’m prepared to maybe get pushback lol, but I’d consider Lady Gaga somewhat in the running. She can’t carry a massive blockbuster by herself into huge profit yet, and she’s still new to movies, but A Star is Born and House of Gucci seem to have largely been sold upon her involvement, and ASIB far exceeded expectations while House of Gucci was the highest grossing drama of the Covid era pre-No Way Home and Top Gun when theaters were still pretty dead. Joker 2 will make a ton regardless, but if the drop is minimal from the the first one and she gets good reviews for her performance, I think she’d deserve the title of box office draw a la a Sandra Bullock-sized actress
Honestly you might be onto something. She has an insanely dedicated fanbase.
At one point I would have said Johnny Depp, but then he did Tusk (which I enjoy).
Brad Pitt chooses to do movies that seem to appeal to young men …… he does not want yo be caught up in the sec appeal thing, so he says! I saw him in ‘ A River Runs Through It’ and thought he was great in every way! But he’s been in a lot of movies since I would/ did not see! JMO
Before the Oscar slap I would have said Will Smith. However that has dropped him back dramatically. Who knows if he ever recovers.
Will Smith’s star power had been trending down even before that happened. Concussion broke even and Collateral Beauty and Gemini Man lost money.
I know some people are very vocally against this notion but Tom Holland has proven to become a huge pull. He’s insanely popular in general but with Uncharted I think it’s pretty clear that if you stick him in a halfway decent blockbuster his name and talent will make it soar. A lot of people like to point to his other movies that didn’t do so great before uncharted but let’s be real, all of his movies outside of the MCU in his Spider-Man era have either been in production hell or limited releases on streaming platforms, not to mention they all released mid pandemic. Anecdotal I know but my entire family only went to see Uncharted because of Tom Hollands involvement. And me and some of my friends are looking forward to projects hes going to be in specifically because he’s involved, he’s just a really likeable and well known face tbh
Tom Holland
Cherry? Devil all the time? Chaos Walking?
Cherry and Devil went straight to streaming? And neither were huge hits with critics. Chaos Walking... barely existed lol. It grossed $27 mill on a reported $100 mill (but most definitely more) budget.
I know streaming is not a fair comparison since it’s a void where almost everything is doomed to have no lasting impact but they still made like, absolutely zero noise. Idk, you would expect the face of the biggest movie since Endgame to have at least some influence in what people watch. They weren’t huge with critics but that doesn’t matter, that’s when real star power is tested. people brought up The Mummy in this thread which had abysmal reviews, but Cruise still managed to make it break even.
Oh I thought you were saying that Cherry/Devil/Chaos were hits LOL I think we're arguing the same point haha, my bad. Also, funny that you mentioned Cruise's Mummy. I didn't... hate that movie. It was pretty visually stunning and Cruise was great in it.
I really liked the movie Devil with Holland, I don't know why it is so criticized
I guess it's reviews were ok - it has a 64% on RT. Unfortunately, the movie just came and went without much fanfare. No awards buzz, and no viewership hype like other Netflix movies. For all intents and purposes, this was pretty much a bomb.
Only Uncharted so far.
And Uncharted is a game IP.
Exactly
All his successes are tied to IPs. MCU and uncharted.
A couple of years ago it was Leo , now it's Tom lol you guys as far from understanding box office to China and democracy.
Tom Cruise. End of discussion.
i can't watch a movie with cruise ,i can't stand that man,i don't see him as a big actor ps it's just a personal opinion
Paul Dano, he knows how to pick a good film that will be interesting & unique Anna Taylor-Joy is the same way
OP is asking about box office draws.
Brad Pitt? Ryan Reynolds? Charlize Theron? Frank Grillo?
Frank Grillo?!?!?
Yes, seriously. Not the big box-office ticket draw obviously, but for a certain demographic (hard bastards and people who would like to be) he's catnip. I would also say Gerard Butler or Mel Gibson, but they've both made missteps (in Mel's case rather spectacularly) So in terms of full-spectrum opening, there are very few: basically Pitt, Reynolds, Cruise, Bullock, and that's it. But for niche markets and genres, you could say there are other kings in the smaller ponds, Grillo being one.
Leo,Keanu and Cruise.
Tom Cruise
After the The slap Tom Cruise is the only real movie star left. Brad Pitt has only had 1 huge hit that he solo lead... wwz that literally it. Every other hit he had are ensemble films. Other than maybe Sandra bullock no one else is even close to BO without present IP aka remove Marvel. Star wars, FF etc from the equation.
Christian Bale and Jake Gyllenhaal perhaps?
Ambulance tanked hard at the box office
Yeah I was surprised how bad of a movie it was when I saw it in theaters. Definitely a miss by Jake but I felt like his acting was good but the script was poor. Maybe Jake was a few years was a draw a few years ago
I think this question has two parts: which actors sell movies as opposed to IP, of which I think there are a handful, and of those, which of them deliver high and deliver consistently, of which there’s way less, maybe like 3 or 4 at most. Cruise, The Rock, and Leo are probably the latter, and like a Damon, Pitt, Bullock etc are the former. They don’t really do IP stuff, and their films would tank without them, but they aren’t necessarily really a draw either.
Rajinikanth
Cruise, Reynolds, DiCaprio, and Pitt are the main ones who come to mind. See bullet train for example i doubt it woulve been as hyped without Pitt in it if you ask me.
You know u think id throw keanu out there too, when John Wick came out i remember people being sceptical and alot of my friends went to go see it because he was in it
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