Video killed the radio star, and the technology of special effects (as well as the franchising of films, economic shifts and globalization) have seriously wounded the movie star. As Robert Downey Jr. heads for billionaire status, the next generation of leading men and women have become a part of a “starless” system. If Charlie Hunnam had stayed as lead of the big-budget Fifty Shades of Grey project, he was set to earn $125,000, which would have been close to nothing after agent and manager fees, taxes, etc. And it’s no better for action heroes. Chris Hemsworth, star of the Thor films which made more than a billion dollars globally, was paid just $500,000 for the sequel.

You don’t need to cry for such people since they’re still doing well relative to most people, but it’s telling that the diminution of the worker during our age of miracles and wonders has spread to even to such rarified air, even to the veritable lottery winners. From “The Last Disposable Action Hero,” by Alex French in the New York Times Magazine:

“Once upon a time, a movie poster needed to have only two words on it: the star’s last name and the title. Stallone: Rambo. Schwarzenegger: Terminator. In the new action-hero economy, though, actors rarely carry the franchise; more often, the franchise carries the actor. Chris Hemsworth was little known before Thor, and no one outside the industry was too familiar with Henry Cavill before Man of Steel. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who produced Transformers and this winter’s Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, told me that studios were gambling on unproven actors for economic reasons. ‘These movies cost a lot to mount. Adding on the big movie star’s salary is the thing that makes you go, ‘Boy, I don’t know if I can afford it.’ Perhaps no movie typifies this model better than the 2006 mega-hit 300, an adaptation of Frank Miller’s popular comic-book series, which featured inexpensive and little-known actors like Gerard Butler and Michael Fassbender and then catapulted them to stardom. This week, the film’s producers are trying to replicate that success with a sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire, which is anchored by the unheralded Sullivan Stapleton and 299 other equally fit, anonymous men in leather skirts.”