Tom Cruise Tops Research Study of Actors Who Draw Audiences to Theaters

A sprawlingly conceived new study is going around Hollywood and making some real noise.

The National Research Group, an analysis firm that specializes in entertainment and tech, commissioned a survey asking consumers to name up to five actors that would make them most interested in seeing a movie in a theater.

Not Who are your favorite stars? or Whose movies do you most look forward to? This was, very specifically, Who do you most want to watch in a theater?

The results were quite interesting and will no doubt open up debate about who the remaining “movie stars” are in this dwindling industry.

The big takeaway: The stars who matter to moviegoers are old, and getting older. Only one of the Top 20 actors named in the study is under 40.

Surprised? Hollywood keeps rebooting old franchises then acts stunned when there are no more stars. Maybe, if you made more original content and quit rehashing IPs then maybe you’d find them.

The biggest movie stars of the last 10 years were Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Man, Batman, Thor and Tom Cruise.

These were the results of the survey:

Does this list make sense to you?

The average age of of the top 20 is 58 years old. Practically all of these actors would have felt right at home during the 2003 Oscars.

I’d take out Johnny Depp, his stock has drastically dropped over the years, especially when he isn’t playing Captain Jack Sparrow.

Why is Will Smith there? His Oscar slap turned off a lot of people. Yes, he still has his loyal fanbase and maybe people will show up to “Bad Boys 4,” but I don’t think he’s as big of a draw as, say, five years ago.

The rest I’m fine with. I’d probably replace Smith and Depp with Keanu Reeves (#11) and Sandra Bullock (#12).

What this list tells me is that we’re definitely living in an era where the “movie star” isn’t as powerful as it once was. I’d gather that, purely based on their names alone, only Tom Cruise and Dwayne Johnson would be able to gather up blockbuster numbers for one of their films.

Hanks, Pitt, Washington and DiCaprio are big draws, but their names stamped on a poster would not be enough to deliver top-grossing movies. Maybe a hit, but not a “Top Gun: Maverick” or “San Andreas.”