It is very likely that in any question in Section A: Producers and Audiences on the FM2 paper, you will need to discuss the importance of stars.
Stars are integral to the success of Hollywood movies for a number of reasons, and can be the difference between success and failure at the box-office for British films and low-budget independent American films. If a low budget British movie has a globally recognisable star involved then it stands a much better chance of attracting an audience - one of the most successful British films ever made,
Notting Hill, owed a great deal of its success to the involvement of Julia Roberts (then the most successful female actor in the world).
Globally recognisable a-list stars help get a film made - their involvement is often key to raising the necessary finance for the film's production budget and the involvement of one star can create a domino effect, encouraging other stars to become involved in a project.
12 Years a Slave is a British film that benefited enormously from Brad Pitt joining the cast (and Pitt's production company Plan B Entertainment coming on board helped encourage other production companies to finance the film and, crucially, Fox Searchlight to pick the film up for distribution, despite the film's controversial subject matter). Pitt is barely in the film, with his appearance little more than a cameo - BUT he appeared in almost all of the marketing of the film (see the Italian poster for the movie below), helping raise the movie's profile ahead of its release.
Even more important than this is a star's influence in attracting an audience. Stars are certainly the most important reason why audiences choose to see films (whether this is because of their acting talent or simply because the audience finds them attractive) and a-list stars are often prominently featured in the marketing campaigns for movies. Their images and names are plastered all over posters and trailers and they feature heavily in interviews in the run-up to a film's release, in magazines and on TV chat shows.
The biggest a-list stars earn between $20-30 million per movie (for a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster) and the most globally recognisable actors can earn considerably more if they defer part of their salary and take a percentage of the film's gross. Male actors often earn more than their female counterparts - Johnny Depp earned a reported $58 million for
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides whilst Scarlet Johansson will allegedly earn $20 million for the
Avengers sequel.
One of the reasons that British films often struggle to compete with Hollywood movies is the absence of internationally recognisable stars. Many British actors only become globally recognised once they have appeared in Hollywood movies (for example Kiera Knightley, Ewan McGregor, James McAvoy). This can be beneficial for British movies - once the stars have become globally famous, any future British film they may star in will have a much better chance of box-office success.
It would be useful if you could gather together a list of the most globally recognised a-list Hollywood stars (both male and female) and a list of some of the prominent films they have appeared in. If you can discuss, in your exam, how they were used during the marketing campaigns of the films they starred in, you will gain extra marks.
Please look at the following links to see who were the highest paid male and female actors of 2013. Finding out how much an actor was paid for a specific role is not too difficult - just type in the name of the star and the film and the word 'salary' - you will be surprised at some of the figures!
