{"id":408345,"date":"2026-01-15T07:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T07:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/408345\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T07:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T07:58:09","slug":"zoe-saldana-becomes-highest-grossing-movie-star-of-all-time-dethroning-scarlett-johansson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/408345\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoe Salda\u00f1a becomes highest-grossing movie star of all time \u2013 dethroning Scarlett Johansson"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Scarlett Johansson\u2019s box office reign<\/a> has come to an end.<\/p>\n

As of January 12, Zoe Salda\u00f1a has dethroned Johansson as the highest-grossing movie star of all time with the help of James Cameron\u2019s Avatar series.<\/a><\/p>\n

Avatar: Fire and Ash, the latest installment in the franchise, hit $1.23 billion at the global box office<\/a> Tuesday, bringing Salda\u00f1a\u2019s total gross to $16.8 billion, according to industry publication The Numbers<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Oscar-winning actor<\/a>, 47, has steadily climbed the chart throughout her career with leading roles in 18 films, including major blockbusters like the Avatar movies, as well as Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Infinity War and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. She is the only actor to star in the three highest-grossing movies of all time: Avatar, Avengers: Endgame and Avatar: The Way of Water.<\/p>\n

Johansson, Salda\u00f1a\u2019s Marvel co-star, now sits in the second spot on the list with $16.4 billion. She previously rocketed from third place to first last summer<\/a> with the release of Jurassic World Rebirth.<\/p>\n

\"Scarlett<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Scarlett Johansson is now the second highest-grossing movie star of all time (Getty Images)\"Zoe<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Zoe Salda\u00f1a has become the top highest-grossing actor of all time with $6.8 billion at the worldwide box office (Getty Images for Disney)<\/p>\n

While $6 billion of Salda\u00f1a\u2019s gains are attributed to starring as Neytiri in Cameron\u2019s sci-fi films, the majority of Johansson\u2019s success came from her role as Natasha Romanoff, whose superhero name is Black Widow, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The other actors atop the chart of highest-grossing actors are also known for their roles in the Marvel franchise, as Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Pratt round out the top five.<\/p>\n

Despite having a raft of blockbusters under her belt, Salda\u00f1a has previously spoken about the creative frustrations<\/a> that can accompany work on big-budget franchises.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do I speak about this in a way that won\u2019t make those wonderful filmmakers feel like I\u2019m letting them down?\u201d Salda\u00f1a told The Independent\u2019s Annabel Nugent in December 2024, months before she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Emilia Perez.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I\u2019m not taking those moments for granted; they\u2019re the reason I\u2019m here,\u201d she continued. \u201cBut when you play a part in something that was so special in the beginning, and because of its success now, feeds a commercial machine that requires a lot more time and therefore now runs on its own\u2026 Unless you\u2019re a person that has creative control on the project, the level of input you have as an artist is [diminished]. Now I play a smaller part in a bigger thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-408345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}