Death of the Movie Star?

Two new movies hit theaters this weekend starring two of the biggest stars on the planet: Adam Sandler and Tom Cruise. But neither film was able to take the top spot on the box office chart. According to estimates from Exhibitor Relations, Cruise’s Rock of Ages came in third with $15 million and Sandler’sThat’s My Boy ranked 5th with $13 million. DreamWorks Animation‘sMadagascar 3 earned the top spot in its second weekend out with $35 million.

These box office results show a couple of things about the state of Hollywood. For one, parents are starved for decent family films and will take their kids to see almost anything. If it’s good they’ll take them twice. (You can go here for more on this.)

The bigger lesson from this weekend though, and the overall box office from the last few years, is that big stars may not be worth the massive amounts of money studios are paying them.

Someone like Adam Sandler can demand $20 million per movie because his films are usually sure things. It’s worth it to the studio (usually Sony in this case) to shell out that kind of money because Sandler comes with a built-in audience, built-in marketing and built-in expectations for what each of his films will be like. These aren’t Oscar winners but they’ll make a certain segment of the population laugh until soda comes flying out of their noses.

But what happens when the movies start to fizzle? Sandler’s last outing, Jack and Jill, earned $150 million on a budget of $80 million. That means the film will struggle to turn a profit. With a $13 million opening, That’s My Boy is one of Sandler’s worst starts for a movie. According to Box Office Mojo, it ranks 19th for Sandler’s movies behind films likeLittle Nicky and Funny People.

That doesn’t mean Sandler’s salary is going to shrink any time soon. The funny man is still capable of massive hits. The 2010 film Grown Ups was his highest-grossing ever, earning $270 million at the global box office. But if he can’t put numbers like that on the board again soon, he’s going to be in some trouble.

The scary truth is (well, scary if you’re a movie star) that studios don’t really need stars any more. In fact, they can be a hindrance. Why pay Brad Pitt  $20 million when Chris Hemsworth will do the film for $5 million?

Just take a look at the top-grossing films on 2012 so far. The Avengers (in the No. 1 spot with $587 million domestically) had Robert Downey Jr. but that was it for big, expensive movie stars in the ensemble film. (Scarlett Johansson doesn’t earn as much as you think.) Of the other movies in the top ten of 2012 only Men in Black has a really big movie star: Will Smith. Besides that you have movies like  The Hunger Games, 21 Jump Streetand The Vow that starred young actors who are just happy to be working.

I think Tom Cruise gets a little bit of a pass for the weak performance of Rock of Ages at the box office. The star isn’t the center of the movie and people were probably not willing to shell out $12 for a ticket to see Cruise on  screen for less than 15 minutes. Rock of Ages actually earned less than Madagascar andPrometheus, also in its second week.

As it is, studios are asking more than ever of their movie stars. Few actors get the sweet $20 million up front against a portion of the film’s box office receipts anymore. A much more common deal today is for the star to take a smaller upfront check against a portion of the film’s profits. Those can be tough to come by and the deal encourages the star to do lots of promotion since he or she has skin in the game.

If star-driven movies keep struggling at the box office, expect the studios to ask for even more.