Uncategorized

June 12th – Top 40 Stars from 1989 – 1994

10 Comments

Last night I was checking out this Top 40 Box Office Stars from 1989 to 1994.  It comes from the excellent book 1995 Hollywood Power Stats by Christopher Reynolds.

(Visited 130 times)

10 thoughts on “June 12th – Top 40 Stars from 1989 – 1994”

  1. Hey 6,000 views a day is catching up to this website. The way your views are growing you will soon be doing better than me. Our views are about 25% down. I blame me not pushing them like I used to…..my time on twitter and facebook has greatly diminished. Congrats on your success….keep up the good work.

  2. HI STEVE

    1 Bruce has done so much for us that it’s hard for anyone’s memory to retain all of his variations but I don’t think that he’s done a supporting actor’s table.

    2 I certainly would welcome it and if he puts Loy at the top of it he will on that occasion HAVE my support!

    1. Hey Bob….I have not done a supporting character page……that would be way to hard to figure out….but I do know from the 1920s to the 1950s Loy was fall in the leading lady category.

        1. HI BRUCE

          1 Same difference with guys like Gable and Bill Powell around!

          2 On my White Christmas DVD Gorgeous George’s Aunt gave an interview in a bonus item after the main film in which she talked about the movie and she said “Danny was great in it and Vera and I were the leading ladies – but we all knew it was Bing’s show!”

  3. 1 We have recently discussed on this site how statistics if always taken at face value can at times lead us in the wrong direction. I think that this point is amply illustrated by Joe Pesci appearing at the top of the table above.

    2 In terms of star status Joe’s calling card always seemed to be most valuable when it was offered as Robert DeNiro’s sidekick just as in supporting roles the likes of George Gabby Hayes used to enhance the movies of Randy Scott and the Duke, though of course Pesci is a more serious, better and versatile actor than the likeable Hayes ever was.

    3 Certainly there was never any probability that Joe could “open” a string of major movies as those stars such as Arnie, Willis, Hanks and Cruise and Julia Roberts among the women have been able to do in the modern era.

    4 The major movies in which Pesci appeared in the 89/94 period were Lethal Weapon 2 & 3, Home Alone 1 & 2, JFK and Goodfellas and the stars of those were respectively Gibson/Glover, Macauley Culkin, Costner and Joe’s mate DeNiro. Their total actual total domestic gross was $870 million. Joe made 5 stand-alone movies in the period which came to a paltry 90 million in actual domestic dollars overall and an ensemble movie whose actual domestic gross was $19.8 million

    5 The figures I have quoted come from The Numbers and other sources agree with them, and the actual domestic composite figure that all these sources quote for Joe’s 89/94 movies is just short of $1 billion which is of course higher than that mentioned in the table above. Anyway to call the table as it sits the “Top 40 stars” is a misnomer. Pesci greater than Hanks? Stern greater than Arnie? As tennis legend McEnroe used to say, “You cannot be serious!”

    1. I agree with Bob here, these charts are fun to look at but when you include anyone who has appeared in each movie you’ll get the example Bob mentions – Daniel Stern ranking higher than Schwarzenegger and Harrison Ford. Stern is not a box office draw.

      Does this mean Desmond Llewellyn should rank higher than Roger Moore and Sean Connery on a ‘Box Office Power Chart’? He had the fairly important role of Q in 17 Bond films.

      1. STEVE
        1 Desmond Llewellyn perceived as greater than Sirs Roger and Sean? And why not! In any future polls open to the public I’m going to vote for Desmond and Myrna as Box Office Kings and Queens.

        2 On the subject of artwork in your posters I have always conceded that I don’t have your capacity for refined judgements so for me design, novelty and overall impressions all combine to form my opinions of the artwork in your posters/stills and as many of your posters for actors who are not my own personal favourites are normally newer to me than the posters for most of the movies of my idols it is perhaps natural that the former should excite me now more that the latter.

        3 Certainly your posters have not caused me to be less appreciative of my personal idols – even Bruce’s hyped-up stats for Loy failed to achieve that! – but I try to be as impartial as possible and the reward for that in this case is that whilst I am lukewarm about Cruise as a performer that has not robbed me of the pleasure of enjoying the fine posters/stills in your Cruise video.

        1. Thanks Bob. 🙂

          I get 6000 views a day on that channel, not bad considering there are no movie clips, just images.

          Maybe Bruce can come up with a special chart featuring the most popular supporting actors and actresses (not stars) and their box office rankings, or has he done that already? I have the memory of a goldfish.

Comments are closed.