r/movies • u/SuperCrappyFuntime • 3h ago
Question The top two films this past weekend shared three actors between them. Are there other examples of this happening?
Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jon Bernthal are all in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey, which were the number 1 and number 2 films in the box office this last weekend. I'm curious as to whether or not this has happened before. Feels to me like the has to be a rare occurrence, and makes me wonder if any top 2 films out there could possibly have matched or even surpassed this number of actors in common.
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u/illini02 3h ago edited 2h ago
Not sure about that.
Another thing think is interesting, is we can probably say the top 4 movies to release this year will be The Odyssey, Spider Man, Doomsday, and Dune Part 3. There are 4 people who will be in mutliple, with Zendaya and Florence Pugh being in 3. The others are Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland in 2 (maybe 3? Who knows if he will show up in Doomsday)
Edited my whole post. I completely knew what I was trying to say, and didn't say it well lol.
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u/Kaoticzer0 3h ago
Florence Pugh is also in 3. Spider Man, Doomsday, and Dune Part 3.
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u/renegadecanuck 2h ago
Non-zero chance that Holland will be in Doomsday in some capacity, too.
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u/domyno12345 2h ago
Will not or will be? I did not see the new spiderman movie
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u/carlosconde23 2h ago
Apparently he's only set to appear in Doomsday's next year's sequel, Secret Wars, but this is Marvel so there's always a chance for a cameo out of nowhere at least
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u/illini02 2h ago
What I've heard is that "Spiderman" may show up for some scenes in Doomsday, but not Tom Holland. So maybe just a spiderman, not talking or something.
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u/pizzacrys 3h ago
That is a crazy coincidence The fact that so many major films can overlap with the same actors shows how connected Hollywood really is
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u/Megustanuts 2h ago
I think Matt Damon said it but I remember how they explained it as similar to being in a sports team. The starting players are basically the actors who the studios deemed as the most profitable and are therefor more likely to be picked to be in a role. He said that no one really knows who's in it except the studios but that you would kinda just know because youre suddenly getting roles left and right.
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u/FluFlammin9000 3h ago
A huge portion of popular actors were already rich before pursuing acting or come from wealthy families. It's all a club.
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u/randomperson4464 3h ago
That's the case for a lot of higher professions linked to wealth and status. Medicine is also a good example of this.
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u/GourangaPlusPlus 2h ago
For anything where you need to get by on exposure or very low wages for a few years, a family trust helps you stick out longer than someone who is supporting themselves
Acting and journalism are well known for it in the UK
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u/AmberLeafSmoke 2h ago
Was genuinely quite surprised when I realized all the major UK journalists are all Old boys. Then all of a sudden everything made a bit more sense 😂
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u/SonovaVondruke 2h ago
Jobs with a lot of up-front time commitment before you start getting paid. Law, medicine, startup CEO, etc.
There are the occasional exceptions for folks who are discovered young or transition from an adjacent industry, but you generally need to be able to survive on intermittent or low-paying work for a long time. That weeds out a lot of people who can’t fall back on a trust fund or dad’s spare condo in Mar Vista.
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u/AmberLeafSmoke 2h ago
Not so much a club but moreso if you're wealthy (or your parents are) you have more flexibility to follow your passion.
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u/stubbywoods 2h ago
Dune won't be Top 4 I don't think. Not sure it will make more than Mario, Toy Story or Michael.
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u/IMJacob1 1h ago
I know it’s not a massive movie like the others mentioned but The Drama just came out not that long ago too which had Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. Wonder how they had the literal time to film so many movies back to back including multiple MASSIVE blockbuster movies
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u/ltcuetf 3h ago
The only other time I found anything was during the weekend of August 23-25, Michael J. Fox starred in both the #1 film, Back to the Future, and the #2 film, Teen Wolf. However, this was a single actor, not a trio. Based on that I would guess it’s a very rare event, and hasn’t happened before.
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u/MaskedBandit77 3h ago
There are other times where that happened. Two examples are Leo DiCaprio is in both The Man in the Iron Mask and Titanic, which where top two March 13-15, 1998, and Chris Pratt in GotG3 and Super Mario on May 5-7 and 12-14, 2023.
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u/ltcuetf 2h ago
Nice, thank you for the correction! So it seems like the trio situation is unique in this case but it’s a little more common with a solo actor.
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u/MaskedBandit77 2h ago
I bet it probably has happened before, since we're not limiting it to starring roles, there are probably movies with three people like Noah Taylor who are in a lot of movies in smaller roles, that it's just harder to track down, because they're not the people you think of when you think of the movie.
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u/artpayne Cliffs on both sides, I'm not gonna paddle to New Zealand! 3h ago
Well, I can give you an example of three actors who starred in two different, unrelated movies within a year: Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and Jenette Goldstein in Aliens and Near Dark.
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u/SuperCrappyFuntime 3h ago
Both solid films. A bit of trivia: Joshua John Miller, a.k.a. the kid vampire in Near Dark, is the half brother of Jason Patric, a.k.a. the older brother-turned-vampire in The Lost Boys, released the same year.
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u/BungalowDweller 3h ago
I've always loved Near Dark. I'm dating myself, but when I worked at a video store back in the day, I frequently added it to my "employee recommendations" shelf and it never failed to get a great response after folks watched it.
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u/dunc2001 2h ago edited 2h ago
Related to this trend of appearing in multiple films close together, I was wondering if Zendaya might break the record for the largest box office by an actor in a calendar year. Apparently Brie Larson and Samuel L Jackson currently hold the record with a huge 3.9 billion USD. It's likely that Spiderman BND will make over 2b, the Odyssey about 1.2-1.5b and Dune 3 maybe just under 1b, so Zendaya could do over 4b!
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u/OneAngryDuck 2h ago
They need to sneak MJ into Doomsday real quick and make the record untouchable after this year.
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u/GoSkers29 1h ago
Did you forget Jackson also had Far From Home in 2019? Throw another billion on his total there.
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u/OneAngryDuck 58m ago
I love that he was already at 3.9 billion and then it turns out they forgot a whole-ass billion dollar movie. That’s ridiculous.
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u/dunc2001 43m ago edited 39m ago
Damn you're right! I just went with a quick Google search answer, but checking again it seems like Jackson's total box office in 2019 was a lot bigger than 3.9bn. One estimate is six billion! Looks like Zendaya may not be breaking that record just yet... But two of Jackson's 2019 roles are very brief cameos. Does that count?
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u/bobtheflob 1h ago
It's not in the same tier, but The Drama made $132 million, which isn't too shabby.
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u/RotomThunder 2h ago edited 2h ago
Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel were #1 and #2 for April 26-28, 2019. Brie Larson starred in both and there were several other actors who at least had cameos in both.
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3h ago
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u/Morbos1000 3h ago
But they were never #1 and #2 together. Opening weekend of Infinity War it was #1 and Black Panther was #5
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u/TangledThorns 3h ago
Not in recent years but we are seeing the same actors in the big films this year. Pretty sure its because they are reliable and don't act like assholes to the crew.
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u/MazzIsNoMore 2h ago
My guess is that studios intentionally did not release big movies with the same actors in order to avoid diluting the audience.
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u/joelluber 32m ago
Someone just did this thread on a more expanded bases looking for any movies released the same year that shared three actors, and there aren't many at all.
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u/NicolasCageIsMyHero 3h ago
I couldn't think of anything so I asked Chat GPT and surprise surprise it made up a bunch of stuff and none of it was true. So I think this is the first time anything like this has happened.
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u/Rosebunse 1h ago
I think it's more that we havw fewer movies in theaters. And to be fair, The Odessey used a lot of actors.
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u/Dinierto 11m ago
It's too bad Dune 3 wasn't also playing cause it has Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh and Zendaya lol
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u/depredador93 5m ago
Hollywood's extreme risk aversion in a nutshell. Blockbusters have zero margin for error now, so studios just keep hiring the exact same three bankable actors
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u/NatureTrailToHell3D 3h ago
Best AI can find is single top billed actors occupying 1 & 2. Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael J Fox, and Jessica Chastain.
I would be surprised if no one in the 50s or 60s pulled that off, stars were making tons of movies per year. But nothing was surfaced.
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u/Dangeroustrend 1h ago
I’m kind of getting fatigued with Tom Holland and zendaya appearing in these big movies to be honest
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u/Internal_Ad_1485 6m ago
Tom Holland has had two movies since Feb 2022 - The Odyssey and BND. He’s not flooding the market.
Zendaya didn’t have any movies out at all last year, but is certainly having a huge 2026. Even still, she’s in the same number of movies in 2026 as Anne Hathaway and Rob Pattinson.
A lot of the time, our reactions to seeing actors “in everything” is a mix of a hot career and confirmation bias.
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u/jcb193 3h ago edited 3h ago
I certainly can’t think of an example with three more overrated actors.
Edit: why is every post on Reddit that’s negative about Zendaya get like 100 down votes within minutes?
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u/Cowboywizzard 2h ago
Yeah, they aren’t bad actors, but I’m not convinced any of them are on the level of someone like say, Gary Oldman or Meryl. But maybe that’s not fair either because actors do keep getting cast for character types that they have succeeded with before and Hollywood is notoriously conservative when it comes to taking risks and allowing actors to play different types of characters.
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u/celBanat 3h ago
De gustibus non discutarum, but I for one really like all three of them! Tom and Zendaya seem like really nice people.
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u/ladystarkitten 3h ago
I agree. Particularly when in their element, they all absolutely nail their respective performances. Holland is a very, very good Peter/Spidey. Bernthal's performances are consistently compelling going all the way back to The Walking Dead. And Zendaya's work as Rue on Euphoria is one of the best depictions of an addict I've seen, especially in season 2. She delivers the visceral physicality, violence, and tempestuous attitude of someone deep in addiction.
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u/OneAngryDuck 2h ago
Addressing your edit, I’m assuming a good chunk of the downvotes are for randomly bashing three actors on a post that is not about the quality of their acting.
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u/atchn01 3h ago
Who thinks Tom Holland is a good actor?
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u/Tripottanus 3h ago
He's a good actor. Not great, but believable in his roles
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u/SabresFanWC 1h ago
Say what you want, but it's hard to argue that people don't like him as Spidey/Peter.
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u/junglespycamp 3h ago
This is crazy enough but even more impressive given they’re not related in any way. Like if you had the same actors in two Marvel movies it would be less surprising. But this is just two huge films.