re: At the peak of their popularity which actor would you say was the biggest box office draw?

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No, his downfall occurred when he slapped the shite out of Chris Rock.

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he was already fallen at that point, which was arguably the reason for the slap in the first place.

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40 years .

MI and Jerry Maguire came out 30 years ago.. he'd already come out with Top Gun ten years prior.. in between were Color of Money, Rain Man, Cocktail, A Few Good Men etc .

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for sure. he was already a superstar before, and then Top Gun blasted him into the ionosphere where he has more or less remained for four decades.

According to Chat GPT

Using worldwide theatrical box office, and looking only at each actor’s 10 highest-grossing films, here’s the comparison. These are unadjusted for inflation and include voice roles/ensemble films where the actor has a credited acting role. The 2026 totals are current through August 24, so films still in theaters can move a little.

Rank Actor Top 10 Box Office Total Average per Top-10 Movie
1 Tom Cruise $6.93 billion $692.6 million
2 Tom Hanks $6.76 billion $676.3 million
3 Will Smith $6.35 billion $635.1 million
4 Leonardo DiCaprio $6.15 billion $614.8 million
5 Matt Damon $5.83 billion $582.6 million
6 Brad Pitt $4.34 billion $433.7 million

Got to be Cruise. He's old enough to draw Social Security and still put out the billion dollar plus "Maverick" and followed that what the half billion dollar plus "Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning".

Adjusted for inflation. The original Top Gun would have topped a billion too. Can any of the others claim that?

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1995-1998 was Will Smith's peak. Wild Wild West was the first fracture,

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Talk about a dumbass move, he turned down "The Matrix" to do "Wild Wild West".

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Magnolia was arguably the best performance of Cruise's career..

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And it grossed like $23 million domestically ($45 mill world wide). The topic was box office draw / success. If Cruise best acting performance grossed around that The Legend of Bagger Vance did, you're kind of making my point.

Burt Reynolds

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Followed by Smith, but on a shorter term.

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Umm…Brad Pitt is the bottom right…he and Cruise could be 1a and 1b as far as peak goes. Then it’s everyone else.

I agree Smith is probably next on the list, then Hanks, but no way was Smith above Pitt.