To take two more recent examples, Eddie Murphy and Tom Cruise were once sure fire box office. Even junk like “The Golden Child” would draw an audience.
Not really. Most of the folks we think of as being draws really are just good at picking hits. Golden Child just barely broke even, and when compared to Beverly Hills Cops $234 million haul Golden Child’s $79 was basically a flop. What you see in that $79 million was probably Eddie’s “true” audience, the other $150 million for BHC is the folks who show up for the story.