Jake Gyllenhaal: one of the Most Valuable Stars

#1 - ROBERT DOWNEY JR. - THE KING

Can there be any doubt that Robert Downey Jr. should be sitting pretty at the top of this list for two years in a row? He’s the star of two of the top five highest-grossing movies of all time — The Avengers, which brought in $1.5 billion worldwide, and Iron Man 3, which took in $1.2 billion — and unlike other comic-book heroes who could be recast at the drop of a hat (and often are), Downey Jr. is so synonymous with Tony Stark that when he decided not to make any more Iron Man movies for the time being, Marvel basically put the megafranchise on pause in the hopes that he’ll change his mind.

(Whereas Warner Bros. promptly installed Ben Affleck as Batman just as soon as Christian Bale hung up his cowl.) Don’t worry, though: Downey Jr. did decide to sign on for two more Avengers sequels, so he’s hardly done with his most iconic character.

#2 - LEONARDO DICAPRIO - THE STAR WHO STARTED SMILING AGAIN

The fun he had in Django Unchained and Great Gatsby was contagious. For years, Leonardo DiCaprio was out to prove himself as more than just a teen heartthrob. He was a serious man. An actor. The plan worked, as DiCaprio became a favorite of A-list auteurs like Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, and Steven Spielberg, and their collaborations scored dozens of Oscar nominations (and a Best Picture win for The Departed) and a lot of money (Inception earned $825.5 million total worldwide, while The Great Gatsby pulled in $348.8 million around the globe). There was just one thing missing: a smile.

The formerly impish star hit a brick wall with the dour, roundly ignored J. Edgar, and it seemed to spur him to once again show off his more lighthearted side. As Django Unchained’s Calvin Candie, he was both giddily wicked and brutally cruel, and he mounted a full-on, I’m-a-movie-star-dammit charm offensive in Gatsby.

Both films scored at the box office, and early glimpses of his next movie, Martin Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street, were highly GIF-able, suggesting DiCaprio at his most hedonistic and appealing. His studio value is second only to Brad Pitt’s, because while DiCaprio is still popcorn-blockbuster-averse, he’s the best way to get audiences into Hollywood’s most expensive adult fare. That’s why in our rankings he lands in second place: He doesn’t have anything lined up past Wall Street, but can do whatever he wants next.

#19 - MATT DAMON - THE STAR WHO SLIPPED

Studios still love him, but Damon struggled at the box office last year. Last year, Matt Damon was ranked sixth on our list, but this year, he tumbled to nineteen. What happened? Some of it simply couldn’t have been helped — in part, he was supplanted by stars in the prime of their franchises, like Jennifer Lawrence — but Damon also hit a rough patch last winter with his fracking movie Promised Land, the lowest-grossing wide-release movie of his career. At an anemic $7 million, this reteam with his Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant, which Damon co-scripted, went nowhere at the box office.

Sadly, Damon’s hoped-for summer smash Elysium didn’t quite restore him: The expensive sci-fi vehicle was unable to crack $100 million at the box office and opened to a lower number than director Neill Blomkamp’s last movie, District 9... despite the fact that District 9 had no stars and Elysium had Damon.

It’s no wonder that rumors recently flew that Damon might be willing to come back to the Bourne franchise; he could use a pick-me-up. Still, Damon is a solid, hard-working star with a high studio rating, and he also has a high likability score, made all the more impressive owing to his potentially polarizing activist work for liberal causes. (Just compare him to Sean Penn, who’s got one of the lowest likability ratings on this list.) As a celebrity, Damon is an unshowy presence who’s hardly blowing up Twitter, but that’s part of what people appreciate about him: Unlike his occasionally polarizing cohort Ben Affleck, Damon really does seem unconcerned with his celebrity status. Let’s just hope that when it comes to the box office, he can right his ship and move up a few places.

#55 - JAKE GYLLENHAAL - THE MODEST MOVIE STAR

Jake Gyllenhaal at the Hollywood Film Awards, on 21st October 2013

Over the short decade-plus that he’s been a recognizable name, Jake Gyllenhaal’s career has gone through several incarnations: from the young star of coming-of-agers like October Sky and Donnie Darko, to the critics’ darling of The Good Girl and Brokeback Mountain, to the would-be action hero of Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time.

But it’s really only in the last few years that Gyllenhaal really seems to have found his place as the lead of modestly budgeted, well-reviewed films like Source Code, End Of Watch and Prisoners. None blew up the box office, but the films were all made at a price and likely turned healthy profits, and it seems that Gyllenhaal can still draw enough of an audience, especially abroad: End Of Watch aside, his films generally perform better internationally, with Prince Of Persia quietly making a quarter of a billion dollars away from American jeering. Gossip editors are more interested in him than studios seem to be (thank you, Taylor Swift!), but within his lower-budget wheelhouse, he has significant value.

His mind-bending doppelganger film Enemy (directed by Prisoners’ Denis Villeneuve) recently had a mixed reception at Toronto, but he also has Nightcrawler coming (a crime thriller that he’s producing and which forced him to bow out of Into the Woods) and Everest, with Josh Brolin. Source: www.vulture.com