While Hollywood has been chasing the next Tom Cruise for the last 20 years, the industry has shown us that its biggest movie star is actually Christopher Nolan.
Has the idea of a movie star died? It’s a complicated issue. There are still stars in Hollywood, but the ones like Cruise are few and far between. Cruise certainly represents a dying breed of movie star, one that gets projects sold on his name alone and that doesn’t jump to television.
Most actors can’t go out and sell an original movie to a major studio that gets a theatrical release. If they do, it certainly won’t be with a big budget. Most projects now have to be based on IP or feature an A-list director and producer.
That’s not to say Timothée Chalamet, Michael B. Jordan, Margot Robbie, and Ryan Gosling aren’t stars. However, those four have to bounce back and forth between original stories and popular IP, a “one for me and one for you” mentality.
The irony is that Hollywood has been trying to find the stars in front of the camera when the real ones were behind it.
Why Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, and other auteurs now sell movies
Going back to The Dark Knight, Nolan’s movies carry a certain cachet. They boast impressive visuals, riveting action, and A-list casts. More importantly for studios, Nolan’s movies make money, and a lot of it. Excluding Tenet, which was released during COVID-19, every Nolan movie since 2008 has grossed at least $500 million worldwide, with five exceeding $700 million.
Nolan is now one of the most powerful and influential forces in Hollywood today. If he wants to make a movie, every single major studio would bend over backwards to work with him. For The Odyssey, Universal gave Nolan an estimated budget of $250 million and allowed him to shoot the entire movie on Imax cameras. Guess what? The gamble will work, as The Odyssey has a legitimate chance of grossing $1 billion worldwide.
Nolan might be in rarefied air, but there are certainly other directors who have increased their star power in recent years. Greta Gerwig did the unthinkable by securing a legitimate theatrical release plan from Netflix for her new Narnia movie. Sony reportedly paid Zach Cregger $20 million upfront to write, direct, and produce Resident Evil. Ryan Coogler secured a deal in which the rights to Sinners revert to him 25 years after its release.
Actors are still securing big paychecks, but it’s directors like Nolan, Gerwig, Cregger, and Coogler who currently hold the real power in Hollywood. This crop of directors is the new movie stars.
Originally reported by Dan Girolamo for ComingSoon.
The post Hollywood Wasted 20 Years Looking for the Next Tom Cruise When Christopher Nolan Was the Answer appeared first on Mandatory.
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