22 thoughts on “Samuel L. Jackson Movies”

1. “You can’t be considered a star until you have demonstrated that you can on your own pull your weight at the box office.” [Joan Crawford]

   “We know for a fact that the 5ft 6in Ladd is big as a STAR because the long run of very popular films that he appeared in had for the most part nothing in them but HIM.” [A Quote from When the Stars Shone Brightly anthology].

   The top 15 of his movies in which Ladd had the male lead grossed a “guesstimated” just short of $3 billion [around $200 million average] globally at the box office in today’s money on the basis of a pro-rata application of the worldwide figures that Bruce has supplied for a number of Laddie’s movies.

   Their production costs would have been modest compared with today’s production costs. It is estimated that in his heyday none of his films lost money for his studios. “Good things often come in small packages!”

   It is though almost impractical to try to compare OVERALL a star of yesteryear’s box office status with that of a performer of today like Willis or Statham because the massive franchises with large ensemble casts eschew the proper comparisons given that they were not what the Ladds etc depended on.

   Also of of course large sums are poured into the production, marketing and distribution of today’s franchises and other movies especially of the action hero genre, the foreign market today is much more buoyant than it was in the classic era and of course there are many more people about.

   Accordingly all that I can satisfy myself about is that in relation to the Top 15 stand alone movies of each of the 3 performers the average Ladd one grossed on the face of it twice that of Statham’s but less than half that of Willis. In short in terms of box office performance down the ages Willis in his heyday seems to be “A man for all seasons”.

   Anyway thanks for your comprehensive reply to my Jacko posts capped with a fine quote that I am pleased you shared with me. I regard it as a privilege being able to ”review” your videos and again am very grateful to Teach for allowing me to use his site to do it

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2. HI STEVE According to Wikipedia Samuel L Jackson is currently officially the highest grossing actor of all time in terms of ACTUAL box office takings. However his status in that respect rests on

   1/Ignoring inflation, the factor which is the biggest driving force in Cogerson box office assessments and rankings.

   2/Going along with the Cogerson/Box Office Mojo practice of lumping together all of the grosses of a star’s movies regardless of the extent of the personal contribution that the star makes to those movies. Many of Samuel’s roles that are reflected in the Wikipedia equation are supporting or even cameo ones.

   There is little doubt in my mind that if inflation is taken into account and if some satisfactory way could be found to “weight” a star’s direct box office contribution to the movies he/she appears in Samuel would come nowhere near to being the box office star that say Cruise or Hanks today or Wayne/Gable of yesteryear have been.

   That said Wikipedia tells us that in ACTUAL worldwide grosses Samuel’s films reached $12 billion which despite my caveats at 1/ and 2/ above is a pretty impressive figure when one considers that most performers maybe don’t reach that figure even with the assistance of inflation adjustments.

   Best POSTERS in your Jacko video in my opinion are Twisted, both for Snakes on a Plain, SWAT, Deep Blue Sea, xXx, 187, Robocop [a big fave with my grandson] The legend of Tarzan, Unthinkable, Patriot Games, Jungle Fever and The Long Kiss Goodnight [does anyone know whatever happened to Gena Davis?]

   Not many STILLS in part One of the video but ALL stills will be taken into account in my Part 2

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   1. HI STEVE I mentioned in Part One that Samuel L was the highest grossing actor ever according to Wiki in terms of ACTUAL grosses but I had reservations about that as inflation wasn’t taken into account and Jackson was credited with many movies in which I thought he did not play a significant role.

      A prime example of this tendency to “throw in everything but the kitchen sink” at a star’s grosses is The Work Horse’s Samuel L table which agrees with you on only 3 of Jacko’s best reviewed films and ranks Goodfellas as No 1 for review. No wonder Wiki can call him tops at the box office when he gets those kinds of concessions!

      However “Brue giveth and Bruce taketh away!” because Samuel is not included in WH’s Top 25 Male Legends 1950-2010. Nevertheless overall Teach does Jacko’s career proud as the highly comprehensive Cogerson table covers all of Sam’s amazing 105 movie output. Indeed astonishing!

      Best POSTERS for me in entries 1-25 of your video are Resurrecting the Champ, 1408, Juice, Kong/Skull Island, Hitman’s Bodyguard send-up of Costner’s Bodyguard poster, Coach Carter, 1st one for Jackie Brown, both for The Hateful 8, and the entire comprehensive set for each of the following – Captain America, The Incredibles, and Pulp Fiction.

      Greatest STILLS in my book [entire video] lobby card for Deep Blue Sea, Iron Man 2, Skull Island, Changing Lanes, Unbreakable, Revenge of the Sith. with Willis, with DeNiro, Age of Ultron, The Hateful 8, and Jacko behind the wheel.

      Only the 50 entry extended play could do justice to a career with more than 100 cinematic credits and your super presentation does that career proud. 98.5% according to my own scores accumulation in my notes.

      Have a good weekend and take care.

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   2. Good posts Bob, thanks for the review and generous rating, appreciate the box office info and trivia. Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.

      I’m sure people will want to go and see Samuel Jackson in a movie whether he was billed first, second or 8th, what I’m saying is that seeing his name somewhere on the poster might be the reason to watch the movie at the cinema for some people. He may even be the main attraction.

      Four Sam Jackson films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Jurassic Park, The Incredibles, The Avengers and Pulp Fiction.

      There is one scoring 9 – Captain America Winter Soldier. And 13 scoring 8 out of 10.

      I didn’t include Goodfellas, Jackson had a minor role as a black gangster in that and is killed off quickly. If I did it would be no.2 on my chart – with a score of 9.15.

      “I was not the cool guy growing up. I was bookish. I had a stutter. I wasn’t in the streets with all the other kids. I didn’t dress cool or do cool sh*t. I’ve never been arrested. I’ve never been locked up. I’m a good son, a good father, a good husband–I’ve been married to the same woman for thirty years. I’m a good friend. I finished college, I have my education, I believe in education, I donate money anonymously. So when people criticize the kind of characters that I play onscreen, I go, “You know, that’s part of a story.'”

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      1. Good Day to you O Don Quixote of movie Statistics:
         Whilst I love ribbing Bruce on the subject I see no harm in listing minor-participation movies in a star’s movie CV provided one can keep a sense of proportion about the relativity to the overall scheme of things of crediting box office grosses for movies in which the actor is not the star.

         For example WH himself has told us he went to see the 2016 Split starring James McEvoy because Willis had an uncredited 30 second role at the end of it and it is possible that other Willis fans did too.

         However Split grossed an actual $280 million worldwide and if Brucie W’s walk-on role had made any substantial contribution to that movie logic would dictate that his other movies around the same time would do well also.

         As it is 4 of his movie released between 2014 and 2018 have generated an actual combined worldwide gross of just approx. $52 million or $13 million per movie and a clutch of others have done even worse or gone straight to DVD. Split aside his last Cogerson adjusted 100 million dollar domestic crasher was 5 years ago.

         That’s a far cry from his heyday, when his flicks were consistently spinning box office gold and the top 15 movies of his in which he was the sole important star grossed a staggering almost 7 million in actual dollars at the worldwide box office.

         For example alone above the title and without depending on the widely popular action hero genre packed with muscle-bound non-actors Wills took the 1999 6th Sense over the adjusted billion dollar mark globally. In tandem with that around the same time he did the same for an action movie, 1998’s Armageddon AND again his was the only name above the title.

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3. Hey Vandross…..greatly appreciate you finding this error….luckily, unlike when it happened on our Veronica Lake page….this was able to get fixed pretty quickly……WoC (Wife of Cogerson) got very very frustrated with the Lake problem.

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4. Thank you for fixing this page.

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5. This page does not show his movies.

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