“Star” isn’t a definable concept. Jennifer Aniston is arguably a star (God only knows why) and I don’t think she’s ever managed to make a movie that didn’t suck.
“Star” is the quality of being famous - and shining brightly enough not to be a flash in the pan. Back in the old Hollywood system, Stars were made, and it was part of your contract that you’d participate in the making of your stardom if the magic happened for you. Now, you are contracted do do some red carpet appearances and press junket work - but maybe not. Some people who perhaps could be “stars” choose to avoid the publicity and the type of movies that can make them such (Viggo Mortenson is one of them).
There has never been a star who 100% reliably causes a movie to be a success. There have been a lot of attempts at turning someone into a star - someone who Hollywood sees as having star quality - that haven’t been successful. This is what the word “starlet” is for - but there are plenty of men in this category - Arnie Hammer comes to mind.
Star and respected successful actor have some overlap in the Venn diagram - but there are a lot of respected working successful actors that are not stars - J.K. Simmons will never open a movie or be a red carpet draw, but most directors would count themselves lucky to cast him, and most audiences are happy to see him. And starlets (and their male equivalent) fade, but stars shine for longer, long after then are out of the spotlight as an actor (Jennifer Aniston) - so we still know the name Ingrid Bergman or Faye Dunaway or Gene Kelly. Will we know the name Orlando Bloom in twenty or forty years - I sort of doubt it, but its hard to tell from in the moment.
Almost all the actors mentioned at least had chances after their big hits. It wasn’t like they were never heard from again. They all had increases in pay and opportunities, but either their followup projects flopped or they just didn’t take off or “regressed” back to the character actors they were meant to be, etc. And in come cases looks and niches played a big role. People who looked like character actors and/or professional “That Guys” were never going to turn into Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts.
Alicia Silverstone, as an oft-mentioned example, had the looks and whatever else, and she was given many starring vehicles and studio production deals, etc. I do remember some really low terribly mean insults of her weight (bat girl turned “fat girl” for one) but I think the main thing is that her followup projects were flops and/or terribly panned and the window just closed.
Sam Worthington didn’t become A-List but he got big budget starring roles and has the sequels in at least 2 franchises. He’s billed above bigger names like Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes on big budget studio projects. Plus he’s still working in other films.
When you are debating who is a star going by the box office the stars are laughing all the way to the bank.
Continuing to underperform will of course effect their paycheck in the future but that’s not all that’s looked at when studios are looking for a “name.”
If anything Barrymore got the whole “star” without being in notable movie projects thing for while. She was always in the Hollywood media stuff throughout the 80s and 90s and then her career actually DID take off for awhile with notable starring roles and production work. Look at her production credits and then realize that she was the female lead in at least a dozen high profile movies from around 1995-2007, including several hits.
Henry Thomas, I would consider playing the 2nd male in a Matt Damon film (after he was a certified star) directed by Billy Bob Thornton (ditto) to be a major role, and that was almost 20 years after ET. Playing the 2nd man to Channing Tatum during the peak of his stardom isn’t a bad gig either. He did other stuff like Suicide Kings , which everyone I know seems to own the DVD. Maybe he was 5th or 6th billed on some of his projects but he got Hollywood studio film jobs as an adult in the 2000s and 2010s.
Chris Makepeace was in Meatballs. Don’t think he was in ET. Dee Wallace did Cujo and continued her niche in mom and/or horror roles.
But, yes. The film was a huge hit, and won a ton of Oscars, as well. Hulce’s acting career sputtered out, and he moved into producing Broadway plays. Berridge never again had a role that big, and mostly had bit parts in TV shows and movies (and I was surprised by how frumpy she looked in “The Powers That Be” and “The John Larroquette Show”). It looks like Abraham has had a solid career in film, TV, and theater, but it also sounds like he may have been difficult to work with for a while after winning the Oscar.
Feature films in general have lost a lot of cultural impact over the last decade or so. They’re a two hour diversion of explosions and special effects to fill out your Friday night, not high art. TV and streaming series seems to be where the real drama, suspense and water cooler talk is at these days. I suspect this is why we are having trouble agreeing on a list of modern movie stars.
Drew Barrymore could certainly be argued as being a bankable star, at least during her peak, though she never became huge like Julia Roberts or Kate Winslet. As for Henry Thomas, your “Matt Damon film” (All the Pretty Horses) earned a whopping $18 million against a budget three times that size. Thomas may have had some roles here and there in major films but IMO doesn’t even rise up to “That Guy” status.
As for the kid who played Elliot’s elder brother, well, when people can’t even remember your name you know your career’s in trouble.
I think the poster child for this thread is American Pie. It came out in 1999, when I was in 8th Grade, and was a HUGE phenomenon. Everyone wanted to see it, everyone whose parents wouldn’t take them to it was trying to sneak in or get an older brother or something to get them in (I remember movie theaters being pretty strict about R-rated movies back then). It spawned a gigantic litany of quotes and pop culture references, and even Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars.
Does anyone today even remember any of the male leads? Did Tara Reid and Mena Suvari go on to have prolific careers? Only Allyson Hannigan is remotely worthy of star status today, and she had already appeared on Buffy before American Pie.
^ I was gonna say Kal Penn had the most illustrious career of anyone from that movie, but then I looked it up and apparently he wasn’t even in it. I always thought Harold and Kumar was a spin-off from the American Pie movies, since John Cho was the minor character in American Pie who coined the phrase “MILF”. But apparently the movies exist in separate “universes”, since Eddie Kaye Thomas, the guy who played Finch in American Pie, plays a completely different character in Harold and Kumar.
I think some here have unrealistic expectations of what constitutes success for an actor. The male actors in American Pie included Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott and Chris Klein. All have had multiple film roles since the original movie was released, and are generally recognizable. Really, that’s much better than the vast majority of actors can expect.
When I think “star”, I think “A-list.” None of those guys are remotely A-list. They’ve been in largely forgettable movies. Chris Klein was in We Were Soldiers, a great movie about the Vietnam War, and Election, which I remember as being pretty funny…and that’s about it, as far as I can remember. And the fact that I can’t remember means that they are not A-list.
Funny thing: Hannigan was the only one not already signed for the sequel. When it turned out that she was the female role most wanted for Number Two, she and her agent turned the screws quite a little bit.
I don’t see all that many movies in the theater these days, and when I am contemplating seeing one, my questions are “what is the genre?” “what is the movie about?” and “has it gotten good critical reviews?” That alone tells me whether it’s worth taking a chance. I don’t typically include “who’s in it?” to be a make-or-break decision factor. (Though I will pay more attention to the director for those types of decisions.)
Having said that, when I heard there was a remake of Death Wish being released, I reacted unfavorably. Are you kidding me? A remake of Death Wish? I had seen the original and was not at all interested in seeing a new version. That is, until I heard it stars Bruce Willis. Now that, I most certainly will go see. A rare instance where the actor was the primary (well, only) reason for me to want to go see a movie.
(And I agree that the person who said Drew Barrymore was such a non-star as to be unrecognizable to an entire generation must be smoking crack.)
I think the movie-makers were going for maximum contrast between “her” family/background and “his” family/background, for the most fish-out-of-water bang-for-your-buck.* Gomez isn’t the WASPiest WASP who ever WASPed, while Corbett can convincingly play one. Also, maximum contrast suggests that “he” be the straight-man to “her” funny family, so a funny “he” is by those lights a bug rather than a feature.
The Blair Witch Project is supposed to be one of the biggest hits in the budget-returns ratio in history. I assumed back then that, at least Heather Donohue would have a shot. But nothing but bit parts for the lot of them since then.
And speaking of found footage horror, years later Paranormal Activity became the “New” Blair Witch, making several times it’s budget, but Katie Featherstone and specially Micah Sloat did nothing afterwards.
