The Decline of the B-Movie Star

Ordinarily when people speak of the "decline of the movie star" these days they have in mind the way in which Hollywood no longer produces "bankable" head-liners of the "A-list" type whose casting as a lead in a major feature film (within reason) can deliver a healthy opening weekend gross.

They speak much less of the B-movie star. This is, in part, because the B-movie itself went into decline--as A-movies became really big B-movies with great technical resources and Big Names attached, and as other forms of small-screen production exploded, as with serial television, leaving less room for two-hour-oriented content of any form. However, the B-movie stars would also seem to have suffered from the same factors that overshadow the stars in the A-movies, including the films having to be sold on some basis other than the appeal of the leads, like brand-name franchises, which has its echo in the "mockbusters" in which the Asylum specializes--like Almighty Thor, Independent Day, Tomb Invader and Top Gunner. Amid all that it is not so easy for the would-be B-movie to stand above the evocation of the big movie, any more than the leads in the A-movies can hope to be bigger than their franchises.