Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise is the living embodiment of “movie star” in the most classic, old Hollywood sense. Inhumanly charming, unnaturally attractive, never completely dissolving into roles. Cruise on the screen – it is always Cruise, a walking brand, just his presence makes the movie an event for the audience. What his brand is – an open question: in the eighties he was a teen star, in the nineties he played Oscar dramas, in the noughties – in sci-fi, and in recent years has brought his role as an action-hero to its limits, performing insane stunts himself. Whatever Cruise has done, it continues to work flawlessly for the fifth decade in a row: and here’s the latest action film starring him, Top Gun: Maverick, poised to be the most commercially successful work of his career.
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio prefers to star in auteur films, but never allows them to be commercially unsustainable: over the past 10 years, not a single film with the actor has grossed less than $350 million (Netflix’s “Don’t Look Up” is not included). It’s hard to imagine another star capable of making even a dark and drab art film like “Survivor” gross half a billion worldwide (a similar in terms of budget and form historical action film “Varyag” with Skarsgård grossed eight times less). During the pandemic, DiCaprio made his streaming debut – and also turned the small-screen film Don’t Look Up into a rare audience event.
Brad Pitt.
There has always been a melancholy in Brad Pitt’s gaze that has only grown deeper over the years. That hasn’t taken away his audience popularity, and in some ways it has even added to it: the lone wolf Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is probably the most iconic role of his career (at least, according to the Film Academy, which gave him his first acting Oscar). At the time of the pandemic Pitt took a break, but this year he is preparing to appear in the lead role in two promising projects: the action movie “faster than a bullet” from the director of “John Wick” and “Deadpool 2” David Leitch and the historical drama “Babylon” from the author of “La La Land” Damien Chazelle.
Robert Downey Jr.
The most commercially successful film franchise of all time, the Marvel Universe, was launched with his star charisma by none other than Robert Downey, Jr. He also brought it to its logical conclusion – the highest-grossing movie of all time, the latest “Avengers” – and retired. Of course, played a dozen times the role of Tony Stark stuck to the artist, but it seems that even without it, he retained significant appeal to the audience. At least in parallel with his work for Marvel, Downey Jr. launched a small but successful “Sherlock Holmes” franchise and is even preparing to return to that role. In the pandemic 2020, the critically spitfire “The Amazing Journey of Dr. Doolittle” with Downey Jr. in the top 4 box office Hollywood movies of the year, but this is more of a category of confusion: the true longevity of his career will show the already coming projects.
Sandra Bullock
The adventure hit “Lost City” starring Sandra Bullock is one of six films in 2022 that have grossed $100 million at the U.S. box office; of those, it is the only original project. But that’s not even the most notable thing that’s happened in the final years of the actress’ career: her two previous films, “Bird Box” and “Unforgiven,” are among “Netflix’s top 10 most popular feature-length projects of all time.” It feels like Bullock has only been gaining an audience over the years – it’s likely that her upcoming projects (such as “Faster Than a Bullet” with Brad Pitt – Bullock hasn’t been shy about her action-heroine role since “Speed”) will only set new records.
Angelina Jolie.
An artist’s true stardom is known in trouble. As a young woman, Angelina Jolie pulled the critically acclaimed “Lara Croft”, in her adulthood she launched, again, without the support of the press “Maleficent” franchise (even the sequel has collected almost half a billion dollars). And during the pandemic, it didn’t let “Forever” sink to the unknown, trashed on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences never seem to tire of watching Jolie’s ethereal face, and studios never seem to tire of showing it.
Keanu Reeves.
Not all careers are equal: after the Matrix trilogy ended, Keanu Reeves’ commercial successes became increasingly modest until he hit rock bottom with the mumblecore Three in New York (not a bad movie, by the way). Reeves has always been a bit of a misfit for star status – too weird, too wooden, too sad. And it’s all the more remarkable that in the last decade he’s developed a great new franchise from scratch, the John Wick series. The first film had far from blockbuster grosses, but with each installment they doubled – as did the popularity of the hero. By comparison, the “Hostage” trilogy, which is typical of the genre, had a shrinking box-office between the last few installments. It’s scary to imagine what will happen if this progression continues; we’ll find out next year when John Wick 4 comes out.
Dwayne Johnson.
Dwayne Johnson isn’t so much an actor as he is a showman and a mascot (his social media follower count exceeds Cruise by 50 times), but that has never been a barrier to becoming a Hollywood movie star (Johnson is the obvious direct heir to Schwarzenegger). Existing franchises (“Fast and Furious,” “Jumanji”) the addition of Johnson almost instantly brings them to billionaire status, and even the one-night-stand movies with him (“San Andreas Fault,” “Rampage”) become hits. During the pandemic, Johnson starred in Netflix’s most popular blockbuster (“Red Notice”) and didn’t let the accountability of the Disney adaptation of “Jungle Cruise” sink below a satisfactory level (already an achievement in 2021). Johnson will play his first superhero role this year (you’d think the other characters with Rock’s body wouldn’t have looked like superheroes once). Black Adam the artist had been planning to play since 2007 – he probably realized even then that this role could become his most iconic.