{"id":2368376,"date":"2026-04-11T10:36:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T10:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2368376"},"modified":"2026-04-11T10:36:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T10:36:38","slug":"hollywoods-most-bankable-movie-stars-revealed-as-gen-z-drives-ticket-sales-in-theaters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/hollywoods-most-bankable-movie-stars-revealed-as-gen-z-drives-ticket-sales-in-theaters\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood’s most bankable movie stars revealed as Gen Z drives ticket sales in theaters"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By JACQUES PETERSON, US SENIOR ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER<\/a> <\/p>\n

Published:<\/span> 22:46 BST, 10 April 2026 <\/span> | Updated:<\/span> 23:15 BST, 10 April 2026 <\/span> <\/p>\n

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Some of America’s biggest movie theater operators have revealed today’s most bankable stars, and some of the results may surprise you.<\/p>\n

Variety<\/a> spoke to the CEOs of\u00a0B&B Theatres,\u00a0Marcus Theatres,\u00a0Harkins Theatres, and\u00a0The Lot to find out which A-listers are driving ticket sales to cinemas as the industry still struggles to return to pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n

For actresses, two names came up: Australian star Margot Robbie<\/a> and Gen Z icon Zendaya<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daniel Fastlicht, who runs Southern California-based dine-in theater chain The Lot, cited Robbie’s recent success in Wuthering Heights as proof of her power at the box office.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0Emerald Fennell’s controversial take on the literary classic divided critics, the racy film raked in around $240million off an $80million budget.<\/p>\n

Robbie also had huge success with 2023’s Barbie movie, which earned over $1.4billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"Theatre <\/div><\/div>\n

Theatre owners have named Zendaya as one of the biggest stars driving fans back to theaters<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As for Zendaya, the 29-year-old has had an incredible run of box office hits<\/a> in recent years.<\/p>\n

Not only is she the female lead in both the Dune franchise and the Spider-Man franchise, she’s also proving to be a draw in less mainstream films.<\/p>\n

She’s currently starring in The Drama with Robert Pattinson, which\u00a0achieved the 3rd biggest opening ever for an A24 film and has already earned back its production budget in its first week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When it comes to Hollywood’s leading men, theater owners cited stars like Ryan Gosling and Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet.<\/p>\n

‘Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio are still bringing people to the movies,’ said Harkins Theatres CEO Mike Bowers.<\/span><\/p>\n

‘Ryan Gosling \u2014 look what he has just done with Project Hail Mary. I would add that the success of Marty Supreme was on Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet. Zendaya and Tom Holland are the next generation.’<\/span><\/p>\n

While Gosling’s projects can be hit or miss, the 45-year-old has landed major wins in recent years with both Barbie and Project Hail Mary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chalamet has been more successful thanks to the Dune movies, as well as Marty Supreme, Wonka, and the Bob Dylan biopic\u00a0A Complete Unknown.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Zendaya's <\/div><\/div>\n

Zendaya’s Dune co-star\u00a0Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet was named as one of the biggest male draws today<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Ryan <\/div><\/div>\n

Ryan Gosling is a bankable name thanks to Barbie and Project Hail Mary<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Pitt’s power at the box office has diminished in recent years, but the heartthrob, but he did land a much needed hit recently with the sports drama F1, which grossed over $633million.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DiCaprio has actually been less successful, although some of that has to do with the enormous budgets of his films.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His last two films,\u00a0Killers of the Flower Moon and One Battle After Another had decent box office returns, earning $159million and $212million respectively.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, their earnings were disappointing compared to their bloated budgets, with Killers of the Flower Moon costing $200million to make while\u00a0One Battle After Another was estimated to have cost somewhere between $130million to $175million.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Margot <\/div><\/div>\n

Margot Robbie is considered a box office attraction thanks to Barbie and Wuthering Heights<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

According to recent data, the biggest demographic going to movie theaters today is Gen Z (ages\u00a014-29).<\/span><\/p>\n

This has come as a surprise to analysts, given that Gen Z are the first generation raised on iPhones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

‘This is an audience we thought would be lost to the small screen and to social media and other technology,’ Comscore’s box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian said.<\/span><\/p>\n

‘We thought that they may shun the very analog experience of watching a movie on the big screen.’<\/span><\/p>\n

Some major Gen Z hits in recent years include A Minecraft Movie, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Challengers, and blockbusters like\u00a0Spider-Man: Brand New Day.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.celebrity.land.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JACQUES PETERSON, US SENIOR ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER Published: 22:46 BST, 10 April 2026 | Updated: 23:15 BST, 10 April 2026 Some of America’s biggest movie theater operators have revealed today’s most bankable stars, and some of the results may surprise you. Variety spoke to the CEOs of\u00a0B&B Theatres,\u00a0Marcus Theatres,\u00a0Harkins Theatres, and\u00a0The Lot to find out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2368377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[25884,313198,27184,29279],"class_list":["post-2368376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-dailymail","tag-ryan-gosling","tag-tvshowbiz","tag-zendaya"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Hollywoods-most-bankable-movie-stars-revealed-as-Gen-Z-drives.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2368376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2368378,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368376\/revisions\/2368378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2368377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2368376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2368376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2368376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}