Fallen Stars: Why do Hollywood stars flounder at the box office? | film

MMovie stars have been on a roll this fall, and it hasn’t been particularly big, bold, or pretty. In fact, on second thought, perhaps there’s something audacious about the way audiences have, in quick succession, en masse rejected new films starring Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, and none other than… Daniel Day-Lewis. This group of actors that would make up a particularly star-studded Oscars ceremony couldn’t muster a single hit among them. Even Leonardo DiCaprio must accept his status as the exception that proves the rule: his film Battle After Battle is on track to gross a respectable $200 million worldwide — and all it takes is for him to become one of the world’s biggest stars with the backing of familiar faces Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro, a multiple-time Oscar nominee for directing on an IMAX-sized budget. Almost universally enthusiastic critical reviews. Put it all together for an adult-driven drama, and you can probably outperform and lose somewhat less money than the Disney Snow White remake. (One Battle is unlikely to make a profit from its theatrical release.)

Meanwhile, films like A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, The Smashing Machine, Roofman, After the Hunt, Good Fortune, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Anemone have never had such a constellation of exciting elements brewing in their orbit Along with its stars. Some of them couldn’t even manage particularly great reviews. But that was what movie stars were there to provide: some sort of base level of interest in the movie, even if it wasn’t getting the best reviews of the year or boasting cutting-edge spectacle. None of the aforementioned stars are expected to perform as breakout performers as Tom Cruise between 1986 and 2006 or Will Smith between 1996 and 2016. But there were a certain number of dramas and comedies that would gross $50 million or more in the United States each year, of course, ones whose stars tended to have an advantage in this regard.

It’s not breaking news that franchise brand names have largely replaced their stars in terms of ticket sales. But it’s worth noting that in 2025, Warner Bros. in particular has shown that not every smash has to be a pre-sold sequel or reboot, with original non-IP successes including Sinners, Arms, F1 and the aforementioned (albeit less profitable) battle after battle. Between that and the increasingly fallible Disney empire, studios would be forgiven for assuming that viewers might be willing to try more non-genre films, and that stars might nudge them in that direction, just as DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Michael B. Jordan helped produce these Warner films.

And yet, this assumption would be completely wrong. It’s not that any of this fall’s star-laden bombshells are world class battle-hardened overachievers that audiences have painfully avoided. (Many of the year’s best films will have console releases, giving audiences more time to eventually avoid them.) What’s more, none of the films are connected in a meaningful or even simple way; Nothing even comes close to the modest but successful fall season financial performance of previous non-classic titles like Ticket to Heaven (Roberts, George Clooney), Hustlers (Lopez), or Night School (Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish). In that regard, any of these fall 2025 bombs would likely be happy to match 2022’s disappointing Don’t Worry Darling, which nonetheless grossed nearly $100 million worldwide, presumably relying in part on its star power.

Instead, it increasingly seems that everything has to go well (great reviews, great trailers, online buzz, low competition) for even a modest audience to see older, non-genre films. This in turn creates a strange deflationary effect, as even those films that are able to become events that are not owned by certain segments of the population – Battle After Battle, Challengers, Poor Things, and even more ridiculous films like The Fall Guy – never reach the heights of true phenomena in the past. Some take this as a sign that fans are too smart to run out and spend their hard-earned money just to catch a glimpse of their supposed best, and there may be truth to that. Again, it’s hard to prove that anyone who didn’t make Big, Beautiful, and Bold Journey was doing a disservice to the art of cinema. (After Yang’s film, there’s a much better film by the same director and also starring Farrell at home!)

However, it is not as if celebrity culture is dying a deserved death in the face of increasing complexity. Kids crave hard-to-achieve careers as influencers or YouTubers rather than movie stars or singers, and many podcasters traffic in a cult of personality far scarier than the diminished desire to watch Ruby for two hours because she has a cute smile. At their best, movie stars can guide viewers into stories or worlds that might otherwise interest them. DiCaprio has been doing this for decades at this point. And if stars are no longer truly of interest, streamers won’t keep paying them to defect to various miniseries and imitate their old films.

Certainly, some stars tend to offer something closer to the advertised services, while being consistent with the clock. Many of these characters have had great luck on Netflix and the like, where they can, for example, maintain the Adam Sandler brand (even based on the surprisingly diverse work he’s done for the streamer, it’s been mastered). But some of the best aspects of these current flops include a look at what the longtime actor finds interesting at this point in his career: Julia Roberts playing a particularly prickly role as a domineering but dissatisfied college professor in After the Hunt, or Reeves refining the comedy of his Bill & Ted days as a well-meaning but blundering angel with a taste for… True humanity in Good Fortune. Sure, there are smaller, less star-studded films that explore similarly rich characters, but they don’t play on many thousands of screens. These movies aren’t dismissed in favor of anything in particular, except staying home.

While musing on social media recently about why these types of films no longer appeal to audiences, I received hundreds of responses, including many variations on the increased cost-effectiveness of waiting for streaming and a lot of sentimental insistence that these particular films all seemed bad or uninspiring, as if they were just a blip while everyone else waited for better films. (This is why I say: Some of the better movies like Splitsville, Twinless, and Black Bag came out earlier this year. You might have skipped those, too.) Would-be moviegoers like to imagine themselves as equals, intelligent, immune to the ordinary, and seeking novelty—and some of them are. But the truth is that it now takes an onslaught of inevitable noise to get people into theaters in any kind of decent numbers, and being exposed to hype isn’t necessarily the same thing as being a discerning viewer who only sees the good stuff. (There are also, of course, plenty of people who can’t afford to have consistent nights out. This isn’t directed at them.) Admiring a movie star enough to see them play a criminal hiding out in a Toys “R” Us store or one of the early ’90s MMA fighters isn’t necessarily a badge of honor. However, it is another form of interacting with your personal tastes, such as an interest in horror films or romantic comedies. No one is obligated to follow a big name wherever he goes. Just be aware of what companies are happy to trade for good old-fashioned irrational devotion: an algorithm designed to keep you on the couch.