The bottom line is Halle Berry is much bigger household name than any of them--and that is a fact. Hell, Jennifer Lawrence is a bigger name too. So what exactly are you debating here?
I am debating that it matters for selling movie tickets. Research shows that there is little association between the participation of movie stars in a film and box office performance. So, I disagree that star power is the most important problem and that hiring A-listers is the key to performing better at the box office.
"So half of the films in this top 15 list had A-listers and half didn't. Are there any X-Men films on that list? I didn't think so. Where is the relevance?"
It is relevant because it shows that having a movie star is not essential or even relevant to performing strongly at the box office. You argue that the lack of star power is the problem. That would seemingly suggest that having more movie stars is the key to boosting box office.
Yet, do movies with movie stars consistently fare better than those without them? Not really.
Gavin Polone in "Vulture"
"My review of past box-office performance shows little correlation between “star vehicles” and hits. Looking at last year’s top 100 films at the U.S. box office (excluding animated pictures, which don’t succeed or fail because of movie stars’ voices, and sequels, which shouldn’t count as star vehicles), I see 21 starless films that, given their reported production budgets, probably made money. The list includes Thor, Planet of the Apes, Captain America, The Help, Bridesmaids, Super 8, Immortals, War Horse, and Dolphin Tale. Using that same criteria, I see 21 star vehicles (movies led by someone who, in the recent past, had starred in another hit movie) that made money. Then I looked at the probable money-losers in the top 100. As far as I can tell, there was just one starless movie that lost money, Sucker Punch, while there were sixteen money-losers with touted, proven names, including Cowboys & Aliens, Red Riding Hood, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."
Star vehicles: 21 movies that made a profit and 16 that didn't
Movies without stars: 21 that make a profit and 1 that did not
So, having a movie star is not necessary to making a successful movie and it does not seem to help all that much.
That suggests that having a story that people want to see leads to strong performance, and having a movie star makes little difference. Having a name that people know will not sell movie tickets if the story does not appeal, and movies with appealing stories have succeeded without any marquee names.
My point is having a name everyone knows does not sell that many movie tickets. Instead, having a story that people like and want sells movie tickets.
Instead of focusing on getting names that people know, Fox should focus on telling interesting stories that audiences have not seen before and doing so well. Getting a household name on the A-list to give a mediocre performance in an uninteresting story would not lead to dramatically better profits for Fox.
