Hollywood’s most bankable movie stars revealed as Gen Z drives ticket sales in theatres

by

Major movie theatre chains have shared data on which actors and actresses currently draw the biggest crowds, and the findings might be unexpected.

Variety interviewed the heads of B&B Theatres, Marcus Theatres, Harkins Theatres, and The Lot to learn which movie stars are still bringing audiences back to theaters, as the cinema industry continues to recover from the pandemic.

For actresses, two names came up: Australian star Margot Robbie and Gen Z icon Zendaya. 

Daniel Fastlicht, owner of The Lot, a dine-in movie theater in Southern California, believes Robbie’s strong performance in ‘Wuthering Heights’ demonstrates her ability to draw audiences to theaters.

Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of the classic story sparked debate among reviewers, but proved to be a financial success, earning approximately $240 million despite costing only $80 million to make.

Robbie also had huge success with 2023’s Barbie movie, which earned over $1.4billion.

As for Zendaya, the 29-year-old has had an incredible run of box office hits in recent years.

Zendaya is a star in major franchises like Dune and Spider-Man, but she’s also successfully attracting audiences to smaller, independent films.

Oh my gosh, she’s absolutely killing it in ‘The Drama’ with Robert Pattinson! I can’t even begin to tell you how huge it’s been – it had the third biggest opening weekend ever for an A24 movie, which is insane! And get this – it already made back all the money it cost to make, just in its first week! I knew she was a star, but this is proof!

Movie theater owners mentioned Ryan Gosling and Timothée Chalamet as examples of popular male actors in Hollywood.

According to Harkins Theatres CEO Mike Bowers, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio continue to draw audiences to cinemas.

Ryan Gosling really delivered with his work on Project Hail Mary. Timothée Chalamet was key to the success of Marty Supreme. As for the future, Zendaya and Tom Holland seem poised to become the next big stars.

Ryan Gosling’s films haven’t always been successful, but he’s recently had two big hits with Barbie and Project Hail Mary.

I’ve been so thrilled to watch Timothée Chalamet’s career really take off! He’s become a huge star, and I think Dune was a major turning point. But it’s not just that – he’s also been fantastic in films like Wonka and Marty, and I’m incredibly excited about his upcoming role as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. He’s just consistently delivering amazing performances.

While Brad Pitt isn’t the box office draw he once was, he recently scored a big success with the film F1, which earned over $633 million worldwide.

While DiCaprio’s films have often been expensive to make, his financial success hasn’t always matched up to expectations.

His recent movies, Killers of the Flower Moon and One Battle After Another, both performed reasonably well in theaters, grossing $159 million and $212 million worldwide.

Despite large budgets, the films didn’t perform as well as hoped. Killers of the Flower Moon cost $200 million to produce, and One Battle After Another was estimated to cost between $130 and $175 million.

Recent data shows that Gen Z – people between the ages of 14 and 29 – make up the largest group of moviegoers today.

Analysts didn’t expect this, considering Gen Z grew up with iPhones from the start.

Paul Dergarabedian, a box office analyst for Comscore, explained that this is a group of people they believed would prefer watching content on smaller screens – like TVs, phones, and online – rather than going to movie theaters.

‘We thought that they may shun the very analog experience of watching a movie on the big screen.’

Recent popular movies with Gen Z audiences include titles like A Minecraft Movie, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and Challengers, as well as big hits such as Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Read More

2026-04-11 00:48