No they weren't. Norton's always had more of a cult classic following for things like Fight Club. Downey was a nobody when Marvel hired him. He had a certain level of range going back to the days of Chaplin, but wasn't well known at all by younger audiences. He hadn't had a big career in years.
WB are hiring big named actors to lead their Dc properties. Marvel didn't do that. They just found the guy who best suited the role.
If you look at the NUMBERS and stop ignoring them, Edward Norton's BO average is actually higher than Ryan Reynolds, but lower than Affleck. HOWEVER, Affleck was in 2 Michael Bay films, which increased his total. Take those 2 away and Edward Norton is on the same level.
Robert Downey's average is above both of them. Even before Iron Man.
After reviewing a lot of lists from various sites, it gets kinda confusing and each list is different, but from all the lists I have seen, neither Affleck or Ryan Reynolds crack top 100 highest grossing actors.
It's usually Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, and Samuel L. Jackson at the top.
Even Will Smith doesn't crack the top 10, but usually top 20 or so. The Rock isn't anywhere near the top, either, but will probably get there one day.
While I think WB definitely does look for big stars for their roles more than Disney does, they are playing catchup, whether that's a good idea or not. I do think calling RDJ a nobody is a gross exaggeration. While not a box office draw, he was still well-known, and as I said before, his star was climbing.
I'm talking about WB's casting lead characters for DC movies compared with Marvel's for Marvel movies.
DC tends to get bigger named actors to push it's movies.
No it's a perfectly valid point. But your denial of it is pretty laughable- switching the topic to Justice League in a silly attempt to deny my point.
It's just a fact the DC has generally gone for bigger names for it's lead characters. Obviously hoping those bigger names will push their movies. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, as many film studios do the same.
But Marvel never really felt the need to, and just cast actors who best suited the role. That's when you tend to get actors owning the role like Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans and Chris Pratt. Now those are household names thanks to Marvel.
Last edited by Darth Thor on Jun 7th, 2015 at 05:09 PM
I'm not switching anything. If we bring up side characters Marvel has Portman, Hopkins, and Hugo. Not to mention they just cast Cumberbatch as Strange.
And yes, you've been blowing this way out of proportion. Hell, you were initially saying Mamoa had star power.
And it's not as if DC hasn't cast relative unknowns in large roles as well. Cavil, Miller, Gadot, and Ray Fisher are every bit as unknown as those three.
Did you see the MoS cast? Just about every side character was a big name actor. That leads me to believe that rather than look for the best fit in a well organized process WB went "wouldn't it be cool to get [big name actor] for [role]". Admittedly, no studio is terrible enough to completely eschew the casting process. But WB seems to be inconsistent.
Smith isn't even that big domestically, like I've been saying. And the Rock has only one movie under his belt that's a relatively big blockbuster success. San Andreas.
Yup. Not to mention Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Guy Pearce, Don Cheadle, BEN ****ING Kingsley, Tim Roth, Hugo Weaving, Samuel L Jackson, ROBERT REDFORD, etc...
Again, on AVERAGE WB is using relatively unknowns. Ezra Miller, Jason Mamoa, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavil, and Ray Fisher are less known than Chris Evans, Scarlet Johanson, Mark Ruffalo, and Jeremy Renner. It's not even close, to be honest.
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