Is the Age of the Hollywood Chris Over?

It is often said these days that we no longer have true movie stars. Following the release of the final Mission: Impossible film, the trades lamented the lack of a true heir to the king of the blockbuster. Certainly, we are not bereft of options, and many actors have proven box office mettle in various ways, from Jack Black’s dominance in family flicks to Leonardo DiCaprio’s reliable prestige glow. Still, things are undeniably different from the era when one star’s name could guarantee commercial success around the world. It’s a shift that Hollywood has struggled to deal with, even though we’ve been in the thick of it for well over 10 years now. This is an industry slow to accept even the most obvious of changes. Instead of following the tides, the studios doubled down on trying to create a new megastar for the franchise age. They came up with four major candidates. By startling coincidence, all were named Chris.

Pratt, Pine, Evans, and Hemsworth. The quartet of Chrises. Four tall and attractive white dudes with similar features who rose to mainstream prominence around the same time through a series of interchangeable roles in the midst of the superhero movie boom. All were primed to be the reliable faces of tentpole flicks that would inspire endless sequels and make billions worldwide. And, to their credit, they’ve all headlined a number of record breakers. But in 2025, amid a frenzied period of cultural flux, it feels like this hallowed club has lost its lustre. Does being a Chris still carry clout?

When these four men became big deals, it coincided with the rise of the new era of blockbusters. It was the franchise age, the domination of Marvel and the fervent devotion to IP in search of the billion-dollar payday at the box office. It was a time when movies were making all of the money, and audiences had committed to a series of interconnected superhero films with such zeal that every studio tried to copy the formula (and fell flat on their faces). The directors and producers wanted classic leading men to lead these men in tights into the 21st century. Sharp-jawed, tall and strapping, defined abs (leg day optional), and white. Change the cut of their trousers and they wouldn’t have looked out of place in a ’90s blockbuster. Or ’70s one. Or a ’50s flick. There was a push for a kind of timeless hero, a universal leading man who could be an old-school hero in the CGI age. All four Chrises looked like they came off an assembly line designed for that specific purpose.

There were other competitors for this crown who weren’t called Chris, and other Chrises working in adjacent fields. Every now and then, during the peak of the Chris Discourse, you’d get one smarmy person who was like, ‘Well, actually, my favourite Chris is [insert some other white dude here’, and it always missed the point of why this conversation was so specifically centred on these four men. Their lack of general differences yet endless arguing over the minute details was what fuelled it. It was both surprising and deeply revealing that Hollywood seemed to rest its hopes on four slices of the same loaf of white bread.

But they weren’t identical, of course. Evans was the all-American boy with the starred shield and a Boston bro shadow. Hemsworth was the Aussie surfer dude with abs and a goofy streak. Pratt was the former schlubby comedy dude turned sardonic hero. Pine had old-school charm and a freaky streak with character actor aspirations. But together, they represented a wider dream for the film industry: a starving desire to recreate The Good Old Days.

Hollywood is still desperate to create new movie stars, tentpole actors who can elevate a film’s box office by their presence above the title alone. Every rising star with vague commercial appeal is hyped as the next big thing, although few seem truly eager to mould themselves into that kind of celebrity. Glen Powell is a notable exception, an openly ambitious figure who is candid about making moves in his career that will allow him to become a safe bet for directors and studios alike. Tom Cruise recently described Michael B. Jordan as another movie star in the making following the success of Sinners. Jack Black, as mentioned above, is basically a movie star, albeit one who largely appeals to kids over adults, but his grosses speak for themselves. Yet there are few America-based stars who can do in 2025 what Cruise or Schwarzenegger or Roberts could do in the ’90s. The Chrises couldn’t, despite many eager efforts to try and make it happen.

Outside of those big IPs, the Chrises mostly struggled. Hemsworth couldn’t make a Will Smith-free Men in Black reboot something audiences cared about, and his very funny comedic efforts commercially floundered. Evans had a scene-stealing role in Knives Out and garnered some strong reviews for Materialists but do you remember Ghosted or The Gray Man? Pine’s directorial debut, Poolman, was a total disaster and sadly Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves did nothing at the box office. Pratt has fared better by sticking to voice work, but will never be forgiven for The Electric State. These are not untalented men, nor is every project they’ve chosen in the post-Endgame period a total write-off. But they’re also still evidence that being a movie star in the 2020s is a changed game.

It wasn’t just them, of course. A lot of Marvel and DC stars couldn’t get their passion projects to break even at the box office based on their names alone. The actors who fared best were those with established careers before they signed the multi-film contract. For the likes of Sebastian Stan, it’s taken a good few years for them to find their niche outside of their franchise roles. And, like Stan, many of them are doing so away from the mould of leading men prowess. Stan wants to be a weird little goblin freak and he’s succeeding with aplomb in that range. It’s no coincidence that the Chrises tend to do their best work away from that confinement, too.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has, after years of ‘when will the backlash begin’ discourse, hit a stumbling block, both critically and commercially. It’s not infallible as it once was. DC has been forever mired in drama. Other big IPs, like Star Wars, have struggled too, a couple of notable exceptions aside, like Andor, and even then, that’s on TV. There’s a great conversation to be had about what a blockbuster even looks like in 2025. Is it Sinners, which blew away every expectation to become a true hit, even if it isn’t a billion-dollar one like the studios have rested all of their hopes upon? Is it A Minecraft Movie, an IP-driven work designed mostly for the under-10s and unconcerned with universal appeal? Is it Barbie, another IP property but driven by a unique creative voice and the creative freedom to fulfil it?

Whatever the case, who headlines these films? Is there even a need for a Chris? Glen Powell is certainly eager to fill such a role. Ryan Gosling’s Ken could have been played by one, but we’re glad it wasn’t. The next big face of the MCU is a middle-aged Chilean-American who wears ‘Protect the Dolls’ t-shirts and lets people call him ‘daddy.’ This is not to say that we’re going to let hot white dudes with abs go extinct in Hollywood (ha.) But as we move on from the days of Marvel’s might and IP over star power reigns supreme, maybe we truly are over our need for a real movie-star.

Frankly, I’m not sure any of the Chrises even wanted that kind of power. Well, Pratt totally does, but let’s see how he fares when his name is above the title of something that isn’t an IP (still mad at The Electric State, to be honest). Pine is taking some time off. Hemsworth is sticking to Thor and action. Evans is returning to Captain America but has some good director-driven titles in the pipeline (these two returning to Marvel signals less a desire to get back on top than a flop-sweat panic on Disney’s part). They’ve earned enough clout to make more intriguing choices if they so desire, or just chill out and enjoy their millions. It’s still good to be a Chris, after all.