ArtsBeat has tipped us off to the fact that thanks to The Blind Side and The Proposal, which grossed more than $500 million last year — and in spite of the mullet-wig disaster that was All About Steve — Sandra Bullock has been named the top box-office draw of 2009 by movie theater executives. To put this in perspective, the illustrious Meryl Streep made this year’s list at number 7, and the last woman to win top honors was Julia Roberts back in 1999, the year of Runaway Bride and Notting Hill.
Bullock’s only the eighth woman ever to make top money-maker. The others: Marie Dressler (1932, 1933), Shirley Temple (1935, 1936, 1937, 1938), Betty Grable (1943), Elizabeth Taylor (1961), Doris Day (1960, 1962, 1963, 1964), and Julie Andrews (1966, 1967).
Are we the only ones who see something wrong with this picture? Outside of Crash, and possibly Speed if we’re being generous, her pre-2009 movies are horrible and never broke the $100M mark at the box office (with the exception of 2000’s Miss Congeniality).
Check out the rest of this top ten below, and tell us: which actors have the star power to seduce you into dropping money on a movie ticket these days?
1. Sandra Bullock 2. Johnny Depp 3. Matt Damon 4. George Clooney 5. Robert Downey Jr. 6. Tom Hanks 7. Meryl Streep 8. Brad Pitt 9. Shia LaBeouf 10. Denzel Washington