The Top 10 Young A-List Movie Stars According To The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter just named the top 10 Young A-Listers in the movies taking Hollywood by storm. They are Austin Butler, Timothée Chalamet, Jacob Elordi, Paul Mescal, Glenn Powell, Jenna Ortega, Florence Pugh, Sydney Sweeney, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Zendaya. Do you agree? I think it’s quite accurate.
Are Timothée, Sydney and Glen the new Leo, Scarlett and Tom? Studio execs are certainly hoping they are, with Hollywood betting on stars like Paul Mescal and Jenna Ortega to carry slates and save the box office.
BY AARON COUCH, MIA GALUPPO, BORYS KIT
MAY 24, 2024
The cape was once the kingmaker. But the movie stars at the top of studios’ most-wanted lists today have largely avoided cinematic universes. Instead of being pulled up to the A-list with a call from Marvel or DC (like earlier breakouts Chris Evans, Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa), today’s top talents — according to THR’s survey of executives, managers and agents — were anointed by auteur directors. Austin Butler was tapped by Baz Luhrmann for Elvis, while Denis Villeneuve gave nearly a third of this list their first franchise movie with his Dune features.
Today’s young stars are also less formulaic than their predecessors of just a decade ago, whose indie debuts or tiny Oscar turns were quickly followed by IP-backed film series. They are more agnostic, too, moving easily among studio filmmaking, indie efforts and television. Unlike past eras, there’s also not a single “type” dominating the group. “Are we going to find ourselves going after the same roles? Absolutely,” says New A-Lister (and THR cover star) Glen Powell. “But are we ever in competition? No. We do different things.”
Studio slates are undoubtedly still dominated by franchise installments, but executives are looking for star vehicles, again. Albeit these vehicles may come in the form of remakes or reboots of left-of-center IP from library rich studios. (See: Sydney Sweeney tackling Barbarella.) Says one top exec, “Hollywood spent too long making franchises the star rather than building up the next generation of talent. We haven’t incentivized writers to create star-creating vehicles.”
As the entertainment industry struggles to get audiences to theaters and adjusts to the new economic realities of the post-streaming-war era, stars like Sweeney and Powell, who delivered $220 million at the box office with Anyone But You, are offering a glimmer of optimism to beleaguered studios and their balance sheets. And while the New A-List may be diverse in terms of talents and personas, there’s one area where that’s certainly not the case: actual diversity. Despite pushes toward inclusion, the mostly white names exemplify how studios have failed to radically change the paradigm. (The next quickly ascending tier includes actors like Kingsley Ben-Adir, Damson Idris and Ayo Edebiri, so there’s still hope.)
Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya are considered by most to top any list of young talent, but they haven’t yet reached the professional level of predecessors like Margot Robbie, Emma Stone or Michael B. Jordan — who not only can greenlight movies for themselves, but as producers are breaking new talent and reviving long dormant franchises. But many of these 10 stars will soon be giving that set a run for the money, not to mention the box office.(SOURCE/READ FULL FEATURE HERE)
