Audiences have gone back to the movies this summer after several years of will-they-won’t-they tension. And filmgoers probably have found themselves thinking the exact same thing.
No, not “a Coke costs $10?!”
They’re going, “You again?”
Not that they mind multiple encounters with their favorite stars. But undeniably, through a strange confluence of factors, the big screen has been dominated by just a handful of top actors this year.
I’ve narrowed it down to a fantastic five: Zendaya, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Anne Hathaway and Pedro Pascal.
These guys are everywhere.
This quintet has practically turned Hollywood into a repertory company, a theater in which one group of performers appear in all the shows.
The shared cinematic DNA is dizzying.
Hathaway, Holland, Pattinson and Zendaya all memorably acted in Christopher Nolan’s blazing July blockbuster “The Odyssey,” which has surpassed $1 billion at the worldwide box office.
The web expanded last weekend with just-married Holland and Zendaya in Sony and Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” ($1.3 billion already).
Months ago in April, Zendaya and Pattinson dropped jaws with A24’s hot “The Drama” ($132 million) and in December they’ll slap on the sunscreen for “Dune: Part 3” with Timothée “One Flick Per Year” Chalamet — a sure-thing winner.
Separately they’re all just as dominant.
One of Hathaway’s five movies in 2026 was the biggest comedy of the year, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” ($691 million).
Brilliant Pattinson — who could have been a cartoon voice actor had it not been for, well, his jawline — has been on the lips of Oscar pundits as a best actor contender since the trailer dropped this week for his new drama “Primetime,” in which he transforms into “To Catch A Predator” host Chris Hansen. He’s got an impressive four films this year.
And while Pascal doesn’t have 2026 IMDB overlap with the others, he carried Baby Yoda and the “Star Wars” franchise on his shoulders in “The Mandalorian and Grogu” (a flop, I know). And in December he’ll play Reed Richards in “Avengers: Doomsday.” If that one flops, I’ll quit and give my job to Cindy Adams!
Plus, Pascal’s “Tar”-y fall movie “Behemoth!” plans to open the New York Film Festival, and many suspect that could land him his first Oscar nomination.
Of course, you could chalk up this pileup to coincidence. It’s not as if all the above represented studios — Universal, Warner Bros., Disney, Sony and A24 — met in a secret lair and decided to anoint these actors as the future of cinema. Though some 4Chan board probably thinks they did.
But there’s more to their noticeably frequent casting than pure timing. It shows that Hollywood, which is finally on the rise again after strikes and stagnation, is opening its eyes and recognizing who and what young audiences demonstrably want to see instead of hopelessly praying that the aging stars of yore will enjoy a surprise resurgence.
The moviegoing public has rapidly changed. Gen. Z, today’s leading ticket-buyers, loves Zendaya and Holland. The No. 2 attendees, Millennials, going back to “The Princess Diaries” and “Game of Thrones,” revere Hathaway and Pascal. Pattison shrewdly straddles both.
These folks, if you can believe it, mean far more to the paying masses than Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio do now.
The relative newbies regularly choose adventurous projects, hopping from edgy arthouse to better-than-average action-adventure films. They work with cool directors: Christopher Nolan, Yorgos Lanthimos and Luca Guadagnino, among others. Their names above the title are a marker of quality.
Another thing — and this is important for new generations who have a stronger connection to Letterboxd than People magazine — is that their fanbases admire them more for their acting ability than their celebrity status.
Meanwhile, the dorm-room-poster megastars of yesteryear don’t pack ‘em in like they used to.
A best picture win doesn’t change the fact that DiCaprio’s “One Battle After Another” lost money. I’m expecting the same fate for Cruise’s “Digger” and Pitt’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” in the fall. Cruise couldn’t even sell the very good “Mission: Impossible 8.”
Many pieces have been written about the death of the traditional movie star and how that demise would portend a cataclysmic disaster for the industry. Eh, not really.
Everybody just misread the forecast. The sun’s out, and Anne Hathaway’s in five movies.
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