How important are stars to Film Producers and audiences?

Film stars are a huge contributing factor to producers in the film industry. They help in a number of ways. Christine Gledhill is a film theorist who came up with a theory with 4 steps that define how they contribute. I will apply this to Arnold Schwarzenegger to see how he has contributed to a films success.

The first step sees a star as Capital Value, this means that the Star, just by being in the film, makes more money than if they weren't in the film. They provide security for a producer, mainly due to their fan base and the showbiz they bring if they are in the news currently. For example Arnold is a governor of California, this puts him in the media a lot more than normal, both in politics and showbiz, and this keeps him in the public consciousness almost all the time. Another example of Capital value is Arnold has won Mr Olympia 6 times during the times on 1970-1975 and in 1980. This was at the start of his acting career in 1974, and this gave him a worldwide fanbase of fans who would see his films regardless just to see him act. In combination to this, he is also Austrian, which gave him a fanbase from Europe, and they would go see the film just to see him, the Austrian hero.

Looking at stars as a Construct, this looks at how much of the image of a star is constructed, and how close it is to the 'real' person. Fans want to know what the real Arnold is like, and to see what he is really like, and also to see what he is like in his films compared to his days in bodybuilding. Arnold was a professional bodybuilder and champion 6 times, and people wanted to see this phenomenal man whatever way they could, and they would go see his movies however they could. Arnold is particularly interesting because currently he is a politician, he is a Governor of California, and this is nothing to do with acting, and it is unusual and rare to have a film star still acting, but a politician also, this constructs an image for him, creating him as an intellect rather than a brute, and this possibly would make people go see his movies to see if his role in a film has changed from an action superstar, to a less, more talkative role. Both of these points create a huge fan base for producers. It creates a large number of people who are guaranteed to see the film regardless of who makes it or the plot, then this audience will become attached to characters, and want to see sequels regardless also.

Stars are also important to audiences because, in Arnold Schwarzenegger's case, he plays the same character in almost every movie, a huge, brute, machine like character, This creates an expectation and meets it in every movie, because of Arnold, this makes the audience want to go see films when certain stars are in it, this is one of the main reasons the first person you think of when you mention terminator is Arnold himself, the only man on Earth who can play the Terminator, a Cyborg from the future.