How old is too old for an actor?

[clearspira]

Here's one I thought might make for an interesting discussion. How old is too old for an actor?

I starting thinking about this after both Indiana Jones and Expendables 4 bombed at the box office and part of it imo is the idea of these geriatric action stars trying to be the same men they were forty-fifty years ago at this point. Its all just a bit silly watching granddad going toe-to-toe with a twenty-year-old. And I think we all remember the disaster that was ''A View to a Kill'' with Roger Moore running around with a new face and pulling women young enough to be his granddaughter.

There are two stingers here to this conversation that complicates matters.

1) With few exceptions such as Judi Dench, women found themselves ''out to pasture'' in Hollywood long before men. Hollywood likes women to be beautiful. And when those wrinkles set in, there are a thousand eighteen year olds in the wings. Not saying this is right God no, but it is sadly something to consider.

2) The era of the A-List Hollywood star is dying and there is no question about that. 2023 is the era of the social media star, the Youtuber, the Twitch streamer. There was a time when movies were sold on the name of the lead actor alone - the film could be total crap but if you put the word ''Schwarzenegger'' above the title it would make double its money back. Case in point: Batman and Robin. But nowadays? I cannot think of anyone besides Tom Cruise that this applies to and the latest MI was a disappointment. The original Avengers cast plus Tom Holland are an arguable one too.

Point is, Hollywood almost kind of has to keep recycling these old men because the younger actors for the most part just do not sell movies. But the laws of diminishing returns are absolute.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

A-List in scope depends on midbudget movies that become modest blockbusters. Your average Dark Knight was more few and far between, while your average Batman Begins was always just around the corner. In the genre of romantic comedies for that matter you had $20-30 m movies that would make $200 m with a much easier production.

All that in consideration, millennials started the trend of just not being customary like the generations before them. Star power is a very superficial artistic capacity and is realistically part of the facade of movies. It's essentially more of a meme rather than a mark of genuine art, and the meme starts getting lost collectively. Then when 2010's rolled around was when the movie theater business started drying up.

[hammerofglass]

OTOH Charlize Theron is 48 and gets more believable as an action star every year.

Kinda doubtful if that will still be true in her 70s, though.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Really though It’s not as if those old action stars didn’t make flops back in the day. And this is just one movie out of four in a franchise.

[McAvoy]

Michael Keaton counts in this. Unless that Batman suit he was wearing in The Flash was a powered suit, it was not believable in Batman's movements versus how he looked outside the suit.

But at the same time I am pretty sure majority of the people who saw The Flash in the theaters did it because of Keaton.

[pilight]

Just about all the budget and promotion goes to franchise films. 20 movies have cracked $100M in domestic box office this year. 18 franchise films, one independent faith-based film (Sound of Freedom), and Oppenheimer. They're not trying to sell based on actors anymore, they're selling on familiar worlds.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Just about all the budget and promotion goes to franchise films. 20 movies have cracked $100M in domestic box office this year. 18 franchise films, one independent faith-based film (Sound of Freedom), and Oppenheimer. They're not trying to sell based on actors anymore, they're selling on familiar worlds.

Yeah I agree. That describes the transition.

Less people were going to the theater when 2010 rolled around. You could reach out and touch the difference. Franchise is just what was able to hold up.

[Thebestoftherest]

I think when they die they are too old.

[Deledrius]

I think when they die they are too old.

That's the upper bound, yes.

[McAvoy]

I think when they die they are too old.

That's the upper bound, yes.

Ummm. Even then that may not stop Hollywood.