Who Is Today’s Biggest A-list Star?

In an economic downturn the green light turns red as many projects get sidelined.  The projects that do progress often move forward with smaller budgets and many concessions.  In this time when even the stars’ quotes are getting slashed in half, the question is not “Who is the film industry’s biggest star?”.  The question is “What is the film industry’s biggest star?”.  The answer, marketability.

In today’s climate, marketability is the single most important element in raising capital.  Few A-listers command audiences like they did in the past.  In the last two years there has been a growing trend of stars failing to open movies.  As the New York Times recently reported, “A-list movie stars have long been measured by their ability to fill theaters on opening weekend. But never have so many failed to deliver…”

Viewers today are much more focused on original stories with identifiable characters.  Comic book movies are perhaps the best example of this.  You can argue that most of the comic book movies have massive budgets and star casts, but that is not why they have been so successful – Disney did not buy Marvel for $4 billion because of their big-budget, star-powered films.  Disney bought Marvel for their intellectual property.  Comic book movies are filled with compelling characters that appeal to broad markets.  Disney bought Marvel because Marvel is marketable, and now Disney is sitting on top of a mountain of original stories.

Stars may be A-list to the public, but not to investors.  To investors, money is the only measure of star power.  So long as the public is not filling theaters for A-listers, marketability will remain the biggest star.  While this does put independent filmmakers on a more even playing field, the macro picture for film financing suggests a cloudy future – more on this in the next post.