My brand new Amazon author page….where you can find links to both of our books.
Introduction
Where is Sylvester Stallone? Where is Dwayne Johnson? Where is Jennifer Lawrence? Where is Jamie Foxx? Those are just some of the questions we received after we wrote our first book, Top 50 Movie Stars…Statistically Speaking.
For that book we researched thousands of movie stars, covering over 11 different decades. We inputted thousands and thousands of movie stats into our database. Stats like box office grosses, movie reviews and award recognition. We looked at thousands of actors and whittled down the list until we were left with fifty movie stars. Of those fifty, forty had either passed away or had retired from the movie business.
The response to our book was pretty favorable, but some readers had concerns. Superhero movie fans could not believe Robert Downey, Jr. and Chris Evans were not in the Top 50. Action fans wanted to read about Jackie Chan and Jason Statham. Younger readers could not understand why Kevin Hart was not in the book. In a nutshell, they wanted more modern-day stars!
My response was always the same. If I write another book, I will concentrate on modern stars. So here we are. My second book. A statistical ranking of modern-day movie stars.
In the following pages, we ranked 250 actors and 130 actresses. That is a grand total of 380 modern-day actors and actresses. Will you disagree with some of our rankings? I am sure you will. But, I hope that you view the rankings in a spirit of fun in which it was intended.
Questions You Might Have
- How did you pick the actors and actresses?
Two basic rules. An actor or actress had to appear in at least one movie since 2013 and have appeared in a minimum of 15 movies. Most of the actors have appeared in more than 25 movies. Only a few actors did not have 25 movies in their rankings.
- Are you missing actors and actresses?
Of course we are. If we included all actors and actresses (a) we would never finish and (b) the book would be way too big to publish.
- Some supporting actors and actresses are rated very highly. Is that fair?
One of my main goals was to create rankings that were objective versus being subjective. In our first book, Top 50 Movie Stars….Statistically Speaking, we did not include supporting actors and actresses. This book is including everybody. Are some pretty highly rated? Yes. When I first saw how high actors like J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney were ranked, I toyed with tweaking the rankings, but decided to leave them where the objective stats ranked them.
- How did NetFlix and other streaming movies make the rankings if they were not released in theaters?
Over the last few years we have started including streaming movies. In order to be eligible for the Oscars they have to play in at least one theater in Los Angeles and New York. Those grosses are not reported, so we assign the smallest gross required to get our database to register an UMR score. That gross is about $50,001.
- There are noticeably a lack of pictures in the book, why is that?
Fear of being in copyright violation is the big reason for the lack of photos. All the subjects in the book have pages dedicated to them on Ultimate Movie Rankings.com. We do include photos on the website.
“The book’s cover is very classy in my opinion.” Bob Roy 10.34 pm 25 Sept
“WoC however really really dislikes this cover”. – Cogerson 10.55 pm 25 Sept.
“Boy oh boy – there’s ALWAYS ONE!” Ed Begley Juror No 10 in 12 Angry Men.
Thanks Anonymous. Good quotes as always.
Thank you. Hit the Top 25 when looking at the entertainment category on Amazon.
In the first volume [called “Top 50 Movie Stars – Statistically Speaking]” of his two books about movie stars Bruce Cogerson faithfully ranks the 50 greatest movie stars of ALL TIME based on the comprehensive detailed statistics of their various achievements that the book contains.
This second volume “Ranking Toady’s Movie Stars” covers the statistical careers of hundreds of stars as opposed to just the 50 in Volume One. Indeed volume 2 is the most comprehensive and detailed analysis of today’s domestic movie marketplace and the contributions of the movie stars participating in it that I personally have yet to see. Unquestionably great value for money.
The 2nd volume is overall of the same exceptional standard as the first one as a lucid, highly-informative and intelligent analysis of stardom in today’s cinema. Painstaking efforts have been made in the opening clutch of pages to ensure that the reader understands how the scoring system operates and how all statistical rankings and other conclusions were arrived at – great fun!
Therefore in my view volume 2 should be placed side-by-side with Volume 1 on any keen movie-buff’s bookshelf as collectively the two are great scholarly sources of reference for all kinds of movie information that I have not seen elsewhere and certainly not conveyed in such a comprehensive and clearly-set-out manner.
Given all the doom-and-gloom we are being bombarded with at present Cogerson’s works are a welcome serious but light-hearted reading relief: learning combined with “escapism”! Roll on Volume 3!
I should add that the two volumes do not lack the “feminine touch”! They were edited by Bruce’s learned wife who has also been of crucial assistance to him in operating his massive, highly regarded and well-followed internet site Ultimate Movie Rankings – another MUST for those who like to acquire lots of hard factual [and regularly updated] information about the statistical aspects of movies and their stars past and present.
Thank you Bob. You are the man! Great review. Thanks for taking the time to do this.