AWESOME!!!!

White people deserve this. Now a BLACK actor is the biggest in the industry.

hhahahah fuck u tom cruise.

This title doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to.

Will Smith is kinda blah for me...I don't dislike him, but I don't run out to see a movie just because he's in it.

Good to see everyone else is fiiinallly catching on to something I'd say was undeniable ever since I, Robot.

Wow, 10 years after the phase it finally happened.

Smith has been the most consistent draw in Hollywood for years. I'd go back to ID4 and Men in Black.

He's had an incredible string of hits over the last decade and a bit. The good thing is that he can do every genre - action, sci-fi, drama, comedy, romance, animation, biopic and soon superhero and horror/sci-fi. Add to that the fact he's just an all round nice guy and a family man who appeals to all demos and all races. You cant go wrong with all that. He deserves the title thats for sure and he's track record wont end any time soon.

Dave Poland's man-crush has been validated.

I think Hitch showed that he was really, really onto something, but it may still have been arguable who the fairest of them all was. tHis 90's run put him on the map, but there's a difference between being hot, and being a mainstay. Pursuit is not only a movie that did well, but a straight-up drama not riding a huge wave of Oscar buzz. I think with so many of the larger than life types having withdrawn almost completely, or being tabloid fodder, Smith just managed to outlast everyone.

I've been a huge fan of him before his Fresh Prince of Bel Air days, when he was rapping with DJ Jazzy Jeff. Shame he doesn't rap anymore. His lyrics a breath of fresh air when you get sick of all the other rappers talking about the same exact things.

The problem with Smith is that he is not even close to being as big draw in other countries as he is in USA. Hanks and Cruise are easily bigger stars worldwide.

[quote="Tuukka"]The problem with Smith is that he is not even close to being as big draw in other countries as he is in USA. Hanks and Cruise are easily bigger stars worldwide.[/quote]

maybe but he is worldwide king.

No he's not.

They are counting films like Shark's Tale and Coming To America to that 4.4 billion. Obviously those movies were not successes because of Smith. Hell, in ID4 he was part of an ensemble cast, and the film would have made about the same amount of money even if he wouldn't have been in it. The film did benefit of him, yes, but he was not critical to it's success.

If you count together all the movies in which Orlando bloom has played one of the leads, you get around 5.4 billion. And he has done it in half the time that it has taken from Smith.

Of course I'm not saying that Bloom is a bigger star of the two. He is not. But I'm just making a point that calculating together the grosses of all the movies an actor has appeared in doesn't prove his status as the biggest B.O draw. There are more things to consider than just that.

The fact is that Smith has only three movies that have passed the 400 million mark. ID4 was not a star vehicle, it was the movie that helped Smith to raise into stardom. MIB was not sold as a pure Smith star vehicle either. When MIB2 came out, Smith was already a big star, and theoretically you could say that it was his movie.

But the actual Will Smith star vehicles typically gross around 350 million worldwide. There is a long way from there to the level of Cruise and Hanks.

Say wa? Hitch, a romantic comedy with no other stars outside of Smith, outgrossed its US gross overseas, which was an already-mindblowing $179M. And The Pursuit of Happyness, a film that probably would've been lucky to make a fraction of what it did in the US ($164M) almost matched it with $139M overseas.

He is just as much a draw overseas as he is in the US.

Also, people might claim that Cruise is not popular anymore, but the two movies he has made since he lost his reputation have made 591 and 397 million worldwide. And he has done a lot of good damage control during the passing year, his reputation is getting better again.

In comparison, Will Smith's last two movies have made 368 and 302 million.

Hanks' last two movies have made 300 and 758 million.

I said that he is not as big draw in OTHER COUNTRIES. Not "overseas". If he would be an equally big draw in other countries as he is in USA, he would do 66-75% of his money overseas, like so many other actors do, including Hanks and Cruise. There are much more people in the rest of the world than there is in USA, so having roughly 50-50% ratios for his movies means that he is relatively bigger draw in USA than in the rest of the world.

To be fair, Da Vinci Code, probably would have made an ungdoly (in every sense of the word) amount of money without Hank's involvement. Not to say he didn't add a lot, but Smith works in genres that are often less international-friendly. It's why black stars have an image of not being worldwide draws. A lot of the films starring black actors tend to be about experiences international audiences don't really experience, or are intrigued by. Look at how Dreamgirls is so behind Phantom of the Opera.

True about Da Vinci, but same can be said about a lot of Will Smith movies. His three biggest movies were also the least dependent on him. And both Hanks and Cruise have turned many not-so-hot movie concepts into massive hits.

I don't think that it holds true to stay that Smith's movies are not so international-friendly. Movies like I Robot or Enemy Of The State are very universal, and not at all USA-centric.

Also I think that Cruise and Hanks have done a lot more small movies than Smith. Pursuit Of Happiness might seem uncommercial for a Smith film, but it's not really an alternative film either in content or style. Films like Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut, That Thing You Do or Ladykillers are certainly less commercial ventures. Ali is the only Smith film I would consider equally uncommercial as those - And it didn't do that well.

I think that Smith is a great movie star, a very talented and underappreciated actor, and an all around cool guy. Domestically I think he is right now an equally big draw as Cruise and Hanks. Worldwide he is not even close.