InvestigationThe stars have had their day. In the United States, a new economy has supplanted “bankable” actresses and actors. That of franchises, from old comics or the “Star Wars” saga, guarantees of success for films that can be declined to infinity. That especially of Netflix and others for which the star is the platform itself.
The question was simple: who is Hollywood’s biggest star today? The answer should have been unanimous: a first step of the podium, there is only one. Yet no one agrees. From the dozen or so connoisseurs of the American film industry to whom the question came, very different names came. Graydon Carter, head of the monthly Vanity Fair for twenty-five years, set his sights on George Clooney.
A choice shared by the French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, who nevertheless hesitates with Brad Pitt. Well-respected critic Richard Brody of the New Yorker, quotes him, Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks. Madeline Berg, journalist for the magazine Forbes, who publishes each year the ranking of the highest paid actors in the world, chooses the one who appears at the top of his list, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, former wrestler turned actor, who stars in action films as in comedies, to the hilarious Instagram account. Others have mentioned Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep. Oddly enough, Leonardo DiCaprio’s name never popped up.
No one can agree on the name of Hollywood’s biggest star, but our panel has the same definition of what a star is. “It is an actor or an actress whose simple name inscribed on the sign of a cinema is enough to fill the rooms”, says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst specialized in the entertainment industries, within the Comscore design office.
Among the 100,000 actors who, according to estimates, work in Los Angeles, only a few would be the object of the attention of the producers who would mount projects around them, capitalizing on their aura to scoop everything at the box office. . A personality who, from film to film, builds a public image, and that Richard Brody likes to call “Spiritual leader”, whose devotees scrupulously respect the main commandment: see his films. And an American export just like the bottle of Coca-Cola or the iPhone.
Who can still carry a film on their shoulders?
Cinema exists all over the world, but Hollywood is undoubtedly the industry that has most concentrated its development on the shoulders of a few individuals. The Soviet bloc or Maoist China produced films with prominent leading roles, but without highlighting stars who would have supplanted the heroes of the proletariat or the army. As for France today, its two most famous actresses, Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert, whose stellar nature is unmistakable, do not attract the general public – at the box office, they never made more than a handful. millions of spectators, and this in choral films.
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