Posted on Mon, Feb. 27, 2006
Greatest movies and stars?
Do the math: Why Crowe, Affleck, Damon & Pitt eat Holden's dust
By DAVID BLEILER
For the Daily News | Philadelphia Daily News
"I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star."
- Peter O'Toole as the Errol Flynn-like Alan Swann in "My Favorite Year"
AS THE OSCARS draw near, the two most competitive races may be between Reese Witherspoon and Felicity Huffman for Best Actress, and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Heath Ledger for Best Actor.
Accomplished performers, if not quite box-office names, they're emblematic of a new breed of star who is willing to bypass the Hollywood blockbuster (Witherspoon being the most willing to walk the line, so to speak, with crowd-pleasers like "Legally Blonde" and "Sweet Home Alabama") in favor of more personal filmmaking projects.
That's quite a difference from years ago, when Oscar's biggest winners frequently were movies' biggest box-office names.
In looking at recent Oscar-winning performers, what passes for star and superstar is a far cry from Hollywood's golden age. Sure Russell Crowe has an Oscar and a couple of hits ("Gladiator," "A Beautiful Mind," "L.A. Confidential") under his belt, but exactly how does he compare to, say, William Holden, another rugged, free-living Oscar winner with a penchant for making headlines?
And how about other media darlings of the day, like Ben Affleck or Colin Farrell? Or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, 2005's most photographed people on the planet? Have these two lovers come close to accomplishing what other popular romantic duos on- and off-screen have, like Liz and Dick, Tracy and Hepburn, or even Burt and Sally?
"Brokeback Mountain" is a groundbreaking drama that looks to be headed for Oscar gold. But how does it compare to other landmarks of socially conscious cinema? Because ticket prices today average about $6.40, and were averaging about 40 cents when Gregory Peck exposed anti-Semitism in "Gentleman's Agreement," or less than $1.50 when Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight had "everybody talkin' " about them in "Midnight Cowboy," it's not fair to use box-office gross to compare a modern film's popularity to any films made in the years before Tom Hanks became a household name.
Thus the creation of the ETS (Estimated Ticket Sales), which can compare a film's or actor's popularity from any decade to those of today. A few years back, a local Philadelphia entertainment reporter called Arnold Schwarzenegger the most popular movie star of all time.
Not quite.
The ETS methodology uses a rather simple mathematical equation of dividing gross revenue by average ticket price. Of course, there are varying factors such as if a film is more popular in cities, where ticket prices are higher; if it's a children's film, hence lower prices; how much a film made in its first and second runs (a practice that may have started with "Birth of a Nation" in 1915 and was abandoned in 1975 with "Jaws," a film that simultaneously revolutionized the way movies open and introduced the modern blockbuster); and how many times a film was reissued in theaters ("Gone with the Wind," for instance, had eight wide re-releases after its record-breaking 1939 debut).
Survey the list of the most popular stars, and there is only one contemporary in the Top 25 - Harrison Ford. In the Top 50, only Paul Newman, Eddie Murphy, Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood are still making films. What about the ladies who are still active? Julie Andrews is in the Top 75, while Shirley MacLaine just makes the Top 100. (Julia Roberts just misses that list, coming in at 101.)
The prevalence of the legendary stars of the 1930s and '40s dominating the list can be attributed to the fact that during the heyday of the studio system, most actors would be required to make two or three films a year. Add to this that between 60 and 100 million people a week were going to the movies (compared to between 25 million and 30 million over the last five years), and it makes any star of today making a presence on the list all the more impressive.
Surprises are plentiful. Clark Gable and John Wayne battling it out for No. 1 probably won't raise any eyebrows. But how many would have guessed that Bing Crosby sold more tickets than James Stewart, Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart? If you tried to pick a most popular actress, would Myrna Loy be your first choice over such silver screen giants as Bette Davis and Judy Garland? And how many movie fans under 50 have ever heard of Wallace Beery or Lewis Stone?
For the record:
• Crowe has sold approximately 105 million tickets through age 41, compared to Holden's 535 million at the same age;
• Farrell doesn't even have enough box-office hits to reach the 100 million mark;
• Affleck has sold about 187 million tickets, the same number as Meryl Streep and buddy Matt Damon;
• Brad and Angelina's first film together, "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," sold about 29.5 million tickets, behind other famous romantic couples' first films such as Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy's "Woman of the Year" (31.5 million), Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's "Cleopatra" (48 million), and Burt Reynolds and Sally Field's "Smokey and the Bandit" (58 million).
If "Brokeback Mountain" grosses the unlikely sum of $150 million by the end of its run, it will not have sold as many tickets as "Gentleman's Agreement," equating to about $170 million in today's dollars from its first release, while "Midnight Cowboy" would translate to about $165 million in its initial release.
As for Arnold Schwarzenegger, he's sold about 339 million tickets. Clark Gable, John Wayne, Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper and Cary Grant all sold more than a billion.