# Who is today's Biggest Male Star? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 24, 2004, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852 "2004-04-24T23:04:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/21 "2004-04-25T06:22:30Z")
At least around here, **Robert deNiro** is considered the ‘star’. Second place, Al Pacino. [I’m talking acting capabilities] My choice would be **John Cusack** and even - yes, wait for it…- **Kevin Bacon** [the last one being ridiculed over the game with the same name, but a good actor nonetheless, imo] ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/22 "2004-04-25T12:27:59Z")
> [@Waenara](#): > > I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Russell Crowe. I’m not sure how he’s doing for box office gross or how much he’s paid, but he’s been in lots of popular and/or critically acclaimed movies over the last ten years or so. (L.A. Confidential, The Insider, A Beautiful Mind, Master & Commander). Let’s not forget that little arthouse movie _Gladiator_. Also, Sam Jackson has been in a sursprisingly large number of blockbusters. [Boxofficemojo.com](http://Boxofficemojo.com), mentioned above has inflation adjusted gross figures listed by actors. It’s interesting to note that while T Cruise is big, Harrison Ford still beats him, appearing in movies grossing over $3 bill, by that beating Cruise with about $800 million. Lest anyone think this is all Indy Jones and Han Solo, let me remind you that three of his movies in the past ten years, ‘What Lies beneat, Air Force One’, and in 1994, ‘Clear and present danger’, earned the producers around $450 mill. Mel Gibson is up there, around the $2 bill mark and Tom hanks comes in second, squeezing by Cruise and reaching $2.7. Even Eddie Murphy passes Cruise, but his hits are mostly in the past, though he still had 6 movies grossing more than $100 mill in the last ten years, the highest grossing being Shrek. As far as I can tell, the top five are: Harrison Ford Tom Hanks Eddie Murphy Tom Cruise Jim Carrey Hanks has had 9 movies passing the 100 million mark in the past ten years, in fact, the only one under that mark is his own ‘That thing you do’ which makes him the most consistent box office draw of the lot. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/23 "2004-04-25T13:09:32Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > No, no, no, no…the Hedgehog only has 9-3/4. Kevin Dean has 12. I don’t think you’re giving Kevin Dean enough credit. That’s got to be at least a 14 incher he’s got dangling [here - Kevin Dean](http://www.matty-j.com/images/Kevin_Dean_and_Dan_Floundering.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/24 "2004-04-25T14:48:34Z")
Jack Nicholson should be on some of these lists. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/25 "2004-04-25T15:35:18Z")
Somewhere I read that because Jackie Chan is the biggest star in Asia, he is the biggest star in the world. If that is true, close the thread because the Estilicon has, once again, provided the answer 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![xvxdarkknightxvx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/34f0e0/32.png) [@xvxdarkknightxvx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xvxdarkknightxvx)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/26 "2004-04-25T16:57:13Z")
George Clooney is a pretty big name around Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/27 "2004-04-25T18:40:17Z")
Just a reminder: the OP talked about Tom Cruise being **today’s** biggest male star. Harrison Ford and Jack Nicholson and the like may have been contenders once, but for today’s box office they’re old news. And Orlando Bloom will only become a star when he headlines a movie that makes over $100 million. Right now he’s Tony Randall. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/28 "2004-04-25T18:57:29Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > Just a reminder: the OP talked about Tom Cruise being **today’s** biggest male star. > > Harrison Ford and Jack Nicholson and the like may have been contenders once, but for today’s box office they’re old news. I agree about Bloom, but not Ford, and especially not Tom Hanks. While Ford’s biggest grossing hits belong in the 80’s, he’s still pulled in about as much as Georgy Clooney has during the past ten years. His days as a megastar might be gone, but he’s still a solid box office draw. Orlando Bloom’s only there because he’s been in four of the biggest hit movies of the past five years. They were not Bloom vehicles though. ---
**Author:** ![Kaotic\_Newtral](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@Kaotic\_Newtral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaotic_Newtral)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/29 "2004-04-25T19:18:16Z")
If you sort the list that **Waenara** provided by # of $100,000,000+ movies it comes out like this. 1 Tom Hanks 13 2 Harrison Ford 11 3 Tom Cruise 10 4 Mel Gibson 10 5 Eddie Murphy 10 6 Samuel L. Jackson 9 7 Robin Williams 8 8 Jim Carrey 8 9 Steve Buscemi 7 10 Morgan Freeman 7 11 John Travolta 7 12 Arnold Schwarzenegger 7 13 Will Smith 6 14 Tommy Lee Jones 6 15 Jack Nicholson 6 That seems like a pretty good list although Buscemi hasn’t really been the _Star_ of any movies that I can think of. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/30 "2004-04-25T20:24:36Z")
I wasn’t ENTIRELY serious about Adam Sandler being one of the 3 biggest stars in Hollywood. I mentioned him in part to be a wiseacre and provacateur (his name seems to provoke outrage in some quarters!). Still, it’s worth noting that, like him or not, people who buy a ticket to an Adam Sandler movie are DEFINITELY paying to see Adam Sandler do his schtick. Adam Sandler is the only reason people paid to see “Big Daddy,” “The Wedding Singer” and “Mr. Deeds.” Now, Will Smith has been in several very successful movies, and is an appealing actor. But is he the main reason people went to see “Independence Day”? Is Ben Affleck the primary reason people went to see “Armageddon”? Is Orlando Bloom (good-looking and talented though I agree he is) the primary reason people went to “Pirates of the Caribbean” or any of the LOTR trilogy? No, to all those questions. Many actors who are, on the surface. more popular than Adam Sandler, have been successful only/primarily in ensemble movies or special effects-driven films, and had little or nothing to do with their films’ success (Jeff Goldblum starred in two “Jurassic Park” movies and in “Independence Day”- blockbusters all, but does anyone think he’s a huge star?). For that matter, we can pose the chicken-and-egg question for most big stars. Was “Saving Private Ryan” a smash because Tom Hanks was in it? Or did Steven Spielberg simply give Hanks the lead role in a film that was sure to be a smash, with or without him? Are Tom Cruise’s movies hits because people love him, or does he get a disproportionate number of good scripts in the mail because studios perceive that people love him? Only a few actors draw big crowds on their own. Adam Sandler is one of them. Of course, MOST of those actors only draw big crowds in a particular type of film. Sandler and Jim Carrey draw huge crowds to their lowbrow comedies, but who went to see “Punch Drunk Love” or “The Majestic”? Tom Hanks is irresistibly popular in romantic comedies and quite popular in conventional action or dramatic films… but very few people want to see him as a hit man (“Road to Perdition”) or a thief (“The Ladykillers”). And while people generally like Tom Cruise, they don’t usually want to see him deviate from his standard persona (“Vanilla Sky” and “Eyes Wide Shut” weren’t bombs, but they weren’t hits, either). Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks are pretty much the biggest male stars, in my view, because they’re the actors best able to draw big crowds on their own. People will crowd theaters on the opening weekend just to see one of the Toms, even if they know little or nothing about the movie they’re in. But once people catch on that Cruise or Hanks is doing something out of the ordinary, the crowds tail off quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852/31 "2004-04-25T20:46:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Top Ten are: > > 1. Orlando Bloom > 2. Mark Hamill > 3. Will Smith > 4. Harrison Ford > … OK, I can see that Mark Hamill would be up pretty high, thanks to _Star Wars_. But how is he two slots ahead of Harrison Ford? The original _Star Wars_ trilogy had Han as well as Luke, and Ford went on to do a lot more afterwards. I know that Hamill is still making a respectable living doing voice work and such, but that’s gotta be less than _Indiana Jones_ and the rest. Orlando Bloom topping the lists also illustrates what I was saying about sharing credit. He was the fourth- or fifth-biggest male character, at best, in _Lord of the Rings_, and the second-biggest in _Pirates of the Carribean_, but he hasn’t been the number 1 man in anything yet (at least, not anything big). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-todays-biggest-male-star/241852.md?page=1)