Johansson Loses Top-Grossing Actor Title to a Co-Star

Zoe Saldaña's Avatar success pushes lifetime box office haul past $16.8B
Posted Jan 13, 2026 7:01 AM CST
Johansson Loses Top-Grossing Actor Title to a Co-Star
Zoe Saldana, a cast member in "Avatar: Fire and Ash," arrives at the premiere of the film on Monday, Dec. 1, 2025, at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.   (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Zoe Saldaña just swiped a Hollywood crown from Scarlett Johansson. The Avatar and Marvel mainstay is now ranked the top-grossing movie star, edging past Johansson on the all-time box office list, per Entertainment Weekly. With Avatar: Fire and Ash passing roughly $1.23 billion worldwide as of Monday, Saldaña's cumulative box office haul has climbed to about $16.86 billion, according to the Numbers. Johansson now holds the No. 2 slot at around $16.44 billion. Saldaña's trio of trips to Pandora as Neytiri accounts for an estimated $6 billion of her total; the rest is padded by her turns as Gamora in multiple Marvel films, three Star Trek movies, and 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean flick.

Johansson only recently reached the summit herself, vaulting from third to first last summer on the strength of Jurassic World Rebirth, which pushed her past longtime Marvel colleagues Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. Her ledger is dominated by Marvel's Avengers and Captain America series, the Sing movies, as well as her solo outing Black Widow, Iron Man 2, and The Jungle Book.

Behind Saldaña and Johansson, the top 10 list reads like the credits of a franchise-heavy blockbuster: Jackson, Downey, Chris Pratt, Tom Cruise, Chris Hemsworth, Vin Diesel, Chris Evans, and Dwayne Johnson fill out the ranks. The standings are based on the combined global ticket sales of all films in which each actor appears, not their personal salaries or profit shares. Saldaña may not be done padding her lead. Director James Cameron has a fourth and fifth Avatar installment on the schedule, and a new Star Trek film is also rumored to be in development.

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