I think this analyse of the state of current so called a listers is interesting and I mostly agree. Leo's career is not only top game but with a shining star on top which very few actors can match that's why everyone is reaching after him. Simple as that. Also after years of wasting new faces in franchises, marvel, dc etc Hollywood is desperate for new a listers who bring butts in the seats of cinemas not just once but steadily and on their own powers. But constantly being compared with Leo could also take some pressure on young actors to deliver on the same level I could imagine.
Recently, I have been discussing the state of the Movie Star, starting here, then we continued over on The Squawk, and now The Hollywood Reporter has crowned their ânew A-listâ, so letâs return to the topic and judge the new generation of stars.
First, to be clear, a lower-case movie star is a person famous for being in movies. An upper-case Movie Star is a person who puts butts in seats, like Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, and Sandra Bullock.
THRâs list anoints ten young stars as the new A-list including: Austin Butler, Timothee Chalamet, Jacob Elordi, Paul Mescal, Jenna Ortega, Glen Powell, Florence Pugh, Sydney Sweeney, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Zendaya.
All of these people are definitely movie stars. But Movie Stars? Chalamet is the closest, Wonka proving he can pull an audience, and Dune boosting his blockbuster cred, though to an extent, that franchise comes with a pre-existing fanbase that would see a Dune movie no matter who starred in it. Ditto for Jenna Ortega and Scream and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, these are movies with ready-made fans. She doesnât have to sell it entirely on her own, which also goes for Glen Powell and Twisters, and Paul Mescal and Gladiator II. However, all of those movies are depending on these stars to bolster that existing fanbase with new, younger fans, which is what Chalamet and Zendaya did for Dune.
Sydney Sweeney is also close to Movie Star status, Anyone But You showed she can put butts in seats, though Immaculate, which she also produced and starred in, did less well. Anya Taylor-Joy, however, just took it on the chin with Furiosa underperforming. Thatâs not entirely on her, but she also didnât drive people to overlook the hurdles for her sake, either.
Zendaya and Florence Pugh I put the same basket of being VERY famous, definitely having the talent and charisma to be Movie Stars, they just havenât done enough yet to prove it out. You only get capital-letter status when you prove you are an audience draw, and Zendaya has only led one movie, Challengers, which despite social media virality and meme-ification, petered out at the box office, which is exactly what happened to Flo with Donât Worry Darling a couple years ago, too.
Jacob Elordi: Is he a Movie Star, or is he just tall?
And then thereâs Austin Butler, chasing Timothee Chalametâs tail to be âthe next Leoâ. (I mean, they all want that, I just feel like those two are the most nakedly ambitious about it.) Like everyone on this list except, arguably, Timmy, Austin still has to prove himself a box office draw. The Bikeriders comes out at the end of June, and itâs tracking to open around $10 million, and top out around $30 million. Itâs a specialty release that distributor Focus Features hopes can cop some crossover appeal with general audiences based on the combined star power of Austin and Tom Hardy, so it will be interesting to see how it does, especially given late June/early July is the most crowded frame of releases this summer. There is a LOT of competition, which doesnât do anyone any favors in the current economic climate.
I appreciate that after a decade of trading Movie Stars for franchise characters, Hollywood is now invested in creating new stars, but I also think everyone is so anxious for The Next Movie Star theyâre anticipating some peopleâs moments. Most Movie Stars arenât made overnight. It took Tom Cruise all of the 1980s to get there. It took Keanu the 1990s. Some people do hit right away (Leo has been a Movie Star since his early twenties, after a successful run as a child actor), but most build their credibility with audiences over time. So even though everyoneâs anxious for a new crop of stars to start driving the box office to higher highs, itâs going to take time to separate the wheat from the chaff and see who actually is a Movie Star, and who is just a movie star.
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