Hollywood Has a New Highest-Grossing Lead Actor
Scarlett Johansson has a pair of Oscar nominations—and one hell of a box office total.
With this weekend’s release of Jurassic World Rebirth, which has already earned a whopping $318 million in global box office receipts since opening last week, Johansson just conquered another major Hollywood milestone: She is now officially Hollywood’s highest-grossing star.
As The Wrap reports, the newest film in the Jurassic Park franchise catapulted the 40-year-old from the number three spot to the top of the list of highest-grossing actors, surpassing two of her longtime co-stars: Robert Downey Jr., whose films have grossed a total of $14.2 billion, and Samuel L. Jackson, the longtime record-holder with $14.6 billion. The success of Johansson’s dino adventure puts her total box office earnings at $14.8 billion.
Nearly 60 percent of that total comes from Johansson’s association with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Seven of her 10 highest-grossing films are MCU movies, led by 2019’s Avengers: Endgame ($2.7 billion worldwide), 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War ($2 billion), and 2012’s The Avengers ($1.5 billion).
Related: Scarlett Johansson Details 'Hard' Experience Working With Bill Murray
Though Jurassic World Rebirth only arrived in U.S. theaters on July 2, it’s already Johansson’s 13th highest grossing movie in which she has a lead role—so can only go up from here (it’s currently stalled just below 2021’s Black Widow, but only needs about $61 million to catch up, which seems like a foregone conclusion.
Johansson is currently in production on three new projects: James Gray’s Paper Tiger with Miles Teller and her Marriage Story (2019) co-star Adam Driver; Christopher McQuarrie’s The Gauntlet with Tom Cruise; and Andrea Arnold’s Featherwood, in which Johansson will play Carol Blevins, an FBI informant who helped authorities secure at least 13 convictions among members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, and whose intel helped in at least 16 other cases.