Fallen stars: why are Hollywood A-listers flopping at the box office? This season has seen underwhelming results from stars such as Margot Robbie, Dwayne Johnson, Julia Roberts and Keanu Reeves.
Posted by FlyGloomy1
Fallen stars: why are Hollywood A-listers flopping at the box office? This season has seen underwhelming results from stars such as Margot Robbie, Dwayne Johnson, Julia Roberts and Keanu Reeves.
Posted by FlyGloomy1
36 Comments
I think there are VERY few movie stars right now. An actor alone won’t sell a movie anymore.
We’re all poor asf & movie tickets are hideously expensive.
The only time I went to the movies due to a particular actor was Lindsey Lohan in the mid 2000s. I had an anti Hilary duff agenda to fulfill.
Traditional celebrity culture is fracturing now that social media is in the mix. It used to consist of actors and musicians who had to get past the industry gatekeepers (or be born into it). Now you have social media stars and podcasters spread out over all sorts of niche interests who don’t need the middleman to get in view of the public. As a result, the public is dividing their attention among a bigger pool of public figures. People are probably asking themselves: “Go out and spend $20+ on the new [so and so] movie, or stay in and scroll around my phone for free watching content from multiple of my favorite creators?”
Edit: Plus, the growing “eat the rich” sentiment is making wealthy traditional celebrities (big name actors and musicians) lose their luster.
none of the movies listed are movies people will go to the theatre for. they’re like wait for streaming movies
I’ve been going to my local art house cinema more often than regular theaters. I’ve seen some incredible movies, Sorry, baby, East of Wall, for example. Not to sound like a snob, but these movies are so much engaging and enjoyable than the big blockbuster ones with famous celebs.
Bad scripts
I actually did go see Margot Robbie’s latest movie in the theaters. It was boring. Maybe that’s why. When people do go support the movie stars, the movies are trash.
I just wanna add, these weren’t exactly box office draw movies.
– **A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey:** I think people weren’t super clear on what this movie was supposed to be
– **The Smashing Machine:** honestly, Mark Kerr isn’t even that known among the MMA community, let alone the general public
– **After the Hunt:** drama about university sexual assault is not exactly a box office draw topic
– **Good Fortune:** unfortunately the case for most comedies nowadays
Did anyone think any of those movies were going to make money? Where have you been for the last 15 years the box office has changed
Hot take that’s probably not that hot—we’re in the age where A-lister directors have more of a draw then the actual stars of the movie.
Seeing Julia Roberts in the PR train for her film didn’t do any favors.
With the cost of movies I only ever go when it’s something I really, really want to see in theatres, and that’s certainly not decided by who the lead actor is
IP sells movie tickets now. That’s what makes Nolan impressive. A nearly billion dollar about about a scientist.
lol a standard ticket to a regular movie at my closest theater is $15. For my partner and I to go to the movies, it’s minimum $30. I don’t give a shit about who’s starring in it. Unless a movie has rave reviews, we’re not going to the movies anymore.
It’s cold as fuck out. I’m not paying $14 plus popcorn to leave my house. You pay me $14 and I’ll see your little movie, Margot.
Movie ticket prices are expensive, and add to that, people in the theater acting like assclowns. My ass is staying home.
I am not going to see a movie unless I desperately want to watch it.
If anything is worth watching, I wait till I can rent it or stream for free.
I love going to the movies as an experience but I’m more inclined towards small theaters in my city or special classic movies for nostalgia.
Where were they advertising these movies? I still watch real tv (digital antenna) or Pluto with commercials and haven’t seen any ads for any of these people or movies.
I used to love going to the movies, but I never fully regained that feeling after COVID. Not sure what it was for me. Maybe because the pandemic made me learn how to like and appreciate being at home and watching whatever I want from my couch? I also suspect that because I mostly stream these days, I’m not seeing as many movie trailers as I used to, so I have less awareness of what’s coming out.
Too much stuff to watch and there’s already a movie on the streets of the country every day.
>I received hundreds of responses, including many variations on the greater cost-effectiveness of waiting for streaming and plenty of irritable insistence that these particular movies all looked bad or uninspired, as if they were just an anomalous blip as everyone waited for better movies. (To that I say: some better movies called Splitsville, Twinless and Black Bag came out earlier this year. You probably skipped those, too.)
This isn’t much of a rebuke is it? Maybe I’m in the minority but I’d never even heard of those films, so for me this isn’t a case of skipping them, it’s more that I wasn’t aware of them, perhaps they weren’t marketed well. After looking them up, it’s not like they were met with rave reviews either.
You want two hours of my life? Pay up
“Hey honey, do you want to see a movie for date night? It should only cost $80 after popcorn and soda.”
No one has money. For anything. Society is seemingly on the verge of collapse. I could go on.
I’m sorry if I can’t get excited for some star’s bio-pic vehicle to sway Oscar nominations. I’d rather pay my mortgage this month.
Had a friend very annoyed by Good Fortune. She went with her husband the Keanu fan, because it’s an R and they don’t let their 12 year old go to R movies. But apparently the R is pretty much for language only, she would have no problem taking the kid. I didn’t see it last weekend, but I probably will before it leaves the theaters.
Movies want to be adult and have the R rating, but they end up leaving money on the table. They don’t get the teens and families with older kids. They also don’t get the audience that wants the hard R sex and violence. I think the ratings board is going to have to loosen up the language rules for R ratings or have R-language only.
I saw One Battle After Another in VistaVision and it definitely got me excited to see more movies in the theater. Just not any of the ones in this article. I was mostly excited to see One Battle… because I’m a Pynchon fan and parts of Vineland have really stuck with me for a long time.
I’m broke so 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Hollywood has lost my trust with all the 3-4 hour movies with theatrical releases. Do they think they are giving us more for our money? My 2025 attention span says NO THX. I just finally committed to watching Wicked, saw that it was four hours, and fell to my knees in the wal*mart
A factor not seeing a lot of people talk about: do people see ads as much anymore? I feel everyone’s ads are so personalized that unless you are clued in to a film are you really seeing ads for that film and knowing it’s coming out?
Michael B Jordan is an A-list actor and Sinners did great – partly because it’s a film that deserves the full theater experience.
I LOVE my local indie theater but still tend to save trips for movies I think would benefit from the full experience. Mostly horror for the atmosphere/sound and visually interesting films I want to see on a big screen. Or classic/foreign/indie films I wouldnt see otherwise.
It’s annoying that articles like this act like it’s just laziness or ignorance, not the prohibitive cost and people making conscious decisions about how they want to consume media.
People are dying, Kim
Going to movie theatres is one of the first expenses that gets cut when people don’t have disposable income.
You can’t get blood from a stone. Wealth inequality is the highest it’s ever been in the modern era.
Because movies are boring these days
Counterpoint: these are the A-Listers who made money at the box office: Jack Black, Scarlett Johansson, Gerard Butler, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise. Pedro Pascal maybe. Three of these stars have some scandals, I only saw one movie that those six have starred in. Maybe Hollywood is dying a slow death but there’s some money to be made.
I’m still workshopping this thought but I think the answer is that people just have way more options for entertainment now than they used to.
There are still plenty of great stars, but star power alone isn’t enough to get people into theaters if the movie itself isn’t good. I think these days word of mouth matters more than ever. Like if everyone’s saying a movie is bad, most people won’t bother spending their time or money on it.
For example, take Tom Cruise’s The Mummy. If that movie had come out at the height of his popularity in the ’90s, I think it still would’ve been a box office hit despite the poor reviews because back then, people just wanted to see a big movie and didn’t have as many alternatives. Another example is Will Smith’s Hancock—if that movie were released today, it probably would’ve flopped. When it came out, the bad reviews didn’t hurt it much but now they’d likely be enough to turn audiences away completely.
Idk if any of that made sense lol people have always went to the theater even during economic instability. Movie stars were literally made during the Great Depression. The difference now, like I said in the beginning, is that people just have way more ways to spend their time, so going to the theater isn’t the default option anymore.