From ArticleWorld

Someone who is famous for their lead roles in films is often known as a movie star. Their film roles have led to them having a heightened level of fame and becoming a celebrity. This celebrity contributes to the amount of money they can expect to be paid for future roles and the quality of films they are offered. The most successful actors are only offered the star roles and so they become associated with the movie star label.

Asian films

Outside of the American film industry, other countries have a highly successful and thriving community of movie stars. The film industry in India, Bollywood, works in a very similar way to Hollywood, but even more emphasis is placed on the leading actors. The success of a film is based almost entirely on the movie star who is taking the lead role rather than on any other aspect of the film. It is not uncommon for these movie stars to take their success and use it to their advantage in other fields, such as politics. A movie star has even achieved the title of Chief Minister of a state in the country based on their movie star success.

Record figures

The first movie star to be paid the princely sum of $1,000,000 for their lead role in a film was Elizabeth Turner, for Cleopatra in 1963. This benchmark lead to more and more movie stars reaching that level and soon it was exceeded. The highest paid movie star in Hollywood to date was Arnold Schwarzenegger who was paid $30,000,000 for starring in just one film, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Until the start of 2006 Julia Roberts was the highest paid female movie star but she has now been overtaken by Reese Witherspoon who has negotiated a deal worth $29,000,000 to star and produce in a new film, Our Family Trouble. An example of a movie star whose presence is guaranteed to make the film a hit at the box office is Marlon Brando. This was demonstrated in 1978 when he was paid a huge $4,000,000 for a cameo role in Superman which saw him appear on screen for just eight minutes of the final film.