Talk:List of highest-grossing actors

Have a Voice

dose anyone knew if it is possible to add a voice actor list (witch could use the number than just tske away thier live action roles than their you go) Fanoflionking 23:28, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Animals at work

dose anyone know if it possible to created highest grossing animal actors Fanoflionking 23:30, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Voice actors

The voice actors list strikes me as a bad idea. Voice actors are generally not box office draws in themselves, and since they can be more prolific than "regular" actors, their numbers can be skewed. Also, many of the actors listed generally have small roles. Trivialist (talk) 16:33, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Stan Lee?

Why is Stan Lee listed as an actor? His own wiki page describes him only as a writer, editor, publisher, and producer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shesthebomb (talk • contribs) 15:54, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

@Shesthebomb: List of highest grossing actors#List says: "The list includes cameos and voice acting." Stan Lee has a large number of cameos in superhero films based on Marvel Comics: List of cameo appearances by Stan Lee. The list is based on the source [1] listed in references. It also has Stan Lee as number one due to his cameos. I don't know a good maintained source for a list of the highest grossing actors in non-cameo roles. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:25, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Meaningful?

We need to ask ourselves whether this list represents a meaningful compilation of data. The WP:LEAD already states that this list is largely meaningless for comparing acting careers widely separated in time, which raises the question of what the list is meaningful for. In other words, what is this list's raison d'être?

The list puts leading roles, supporting roles, voice acting, and cameos on equal footing, which is obviously comparing apples to oranges. The top spot is held by Stan Lee, whose entire acting career—save for three films grossing a total of $343,358 where he is either an interviewee or a documentary subject— consists of cameos. The current number 43 is Mickie McGowan, who does not have a Wikipedia article and whose credits are chiefly along the lines of "Additional Voice(s)" in various animated movies (The Numbers lists the following: Best-known acting roles: Additonal Voice (Despicable Me 2), Additional Voice (Minions), Police Officer Edith (Up), Additional Voice (Doctor Seuss' The Lorax), Additional Voices (Monsters, Inc.). I don't think that this is the kind of data people who visit this list expect or want, and I don't think it's useful since there is no particularly meaningful way to compare Stan Lee (who appears almost exclusively in cameos) at #1, Samuel L. Jackson (who is often in leading roles or ensemble casts) at #2, John Ratzenberger (a voice actor who mainly does supporting roles) at #3, Bob Bergen (a voice actor who mainly does "additional voices") at #5, and Warwick Davis (who mainly appears in supporting roles in live-action films) at #7. These are all completely different types of acting careers.

If this list cannot be used to meaningfully compare different actors' careers, then it is functionally just a mirror of the information at https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-star-records/worldwide/lifetime-acting/top-grossing-stars, the source for all this data (and I'm not sure if that's allowed by our copyright policy). Without any context to help interpret the data in a meaningful way, this is essentially just an WP:INDISCRIMINATE collection of WP:RAWDATA. In order to make it possible to meaningfully compare different actors' careers, the data would need to be curated in a way I don't think we can achieve without engaging in WP:Original research.

I don't think this is a fixable problem; it seems to me like a Garbage in, garbage out kind of deal. I would suggest scrapping the list entirely. TompaDompa (talk) 11:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

TrueHeartSusie3 you might be interested in this base on our discussions with each other at Talk:Amber Heard. -- Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:59, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

What if we shortened the list and have separate lists

a overall list

a lead list

a supporting list

a cameo list

For example Fanoflionking 18:30, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, that might work (though I think we'd need at least one more list for voice acting as well, and the voice acting would probably also need to be divided into lead, supporting, "additional", and so on as well), but that's what I don't think we can achieve without engaging in WP:Original research. Can we? TompaDompa (talk) 18:35, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

The number dose have pages for each of the lists above see below for the acting lists https://m.the-numbers.com/box-office-star-records/worldwide/lifetime-acting/ Surely there something we can produce Fanoflionking 18:45, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I stand corrected. That would work, I guess. TompaDompa (talk) 18:51, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Just find a lists on there for Digital Animation Movie, Hand Animation, Stop-Motion Animation so it could be possible to produce a voice acting list by combining those list Fanoflionking 18:53, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

See https://m.the-numbers.com/box-office-star-records/worldwide/production-methods/ Fanoflionking 18:55, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest the following lists:

• All roles, including voice acting and cameos
• Live-action roles, not including voice acting and cameos
• Lead roles (if it's possible to do both with and without voice acting that would be preferable)
• Supporting roles (if it's possible to do both with and without voice acting that would be preferable)
• Voice acting roles (if possible)

The problem with voice acting is that someone might be a voice actor in a live-action film (such as Frank Oz as Yoda in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith or Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon in the MCU), so it might not be possible to isolate the voice acting roles. TompaDompa (talk) 19:05, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, voice acting should be equal to (all roles - live-action roles - cameos). I think that should be acceptable per WP:CALC. I'll look into it. TompaDompa (talk) 09:57, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

We want editors to update it regularly when theaters reopen. I would prefer limiting it to things listed directly in a source. It may also be WP:SYNTHESIS to assume that the source tables are consistent enough for such a calculation. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:19, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I looked into it a bit, and no, we can't use the source tables like that. Specifically, I looked at Alan Tudyk's films. It breaks down thusly:

• All roles: $14,703,288,531 from 36 films
• Live-action roles: $4,991,254,577 from 23 films
• Cameos: $786,680,557 from 1 film (Deadpool 2)
• Remainder: $8,925,353,397 from 12 films. The following 12 films from his filmography have grosses that sum up to that same amount, $8,925,353,397:
  • Frozen II – $1,448,203,157
  • Frozen – $1,268,746,174
  • Zootopia – $1,023,784,195
  • Ice Age: Continental Drift – $879,765,137
  • Big Hero 6 – $652,127,828
  • Ice Age: The Meltdown – $651,899,282
  • Moana – $636,927,067
  • Transformers: The Last Knight – $602,893,340
  • Ralph Breaks the Internet – $529,290,830
  • Wreck-It Ralph – $496,511,521
  • Ice Age – $386,116,343
  • Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked – $349,088,523

There are two problems that are immediately obvious here: For one, this list does not include his role as Iago in the 2019 Aladdin, which must mean that that role counts as one of his live-action roles (from what I can gather from other sources, this was voice acting only, though that could be wrong). More egregiously, this includes a role as Hot Rod in Transformers: The Last Knight, which according to other sources was not voiced by him but by Omar Sy. This throws the accuracy (and thus reliability) of the source into question. I also did the calculation for Scarlett Johansson:

• All roles: $14,618,545,046 from 49 films
• Live-action roles: $12,820,718,654 from 44 films
• Difference: $1,797,826,392 from 5 films. Likely breakdown from her filmography:
  • The Jungle Book – $962,854,547
  • Sing – $634,454,789
  • The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie – $142,051,255
  • Isle of Dogs – $58,465,801
  • Sing 2 – $0 (not yet released but listed on her filmography)

This also sums to $1,797,826,392. This means her voice acting role in Her is counted as a live-action role. Maybe we'll have to scrap this after all. TompaDompa (talk) 16:56, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I have done some work a product two charts

This first chart is leads in an animated feature films

Rank	Actor	Worldwide total	Top-grossing film	Films	Average
1	Steve Carell	$4,355,912,391	Despicable Me 3 ($1,034,724,710)	6	$725,985,399
2	Tom Hanks	$3,330,361,564	Toy story 4 ($1,073,394,813)	5	$666,072,313
3	Josh Gad	$3,219,752,644	Frozen II ($1,448,203,157)	4	$804,938,161
4	Denis Leary	$3,179,639,301	Ice Age: Continental Drift ($879,765,137)	5	$635,927,860
6	Ray Romano	$3,179,639,301		5	$635,927,860
7	Tim Allen	$3,018,178,127	Toy story 4 ($1,073,394,813)	4	$754,544,532
8	Mike Myers	$2,991,173,233	shrek 2 ($108,255,770)		$754,544,532
9	Eddie Murphy
10	Cameron Diaz

This second chart is a voice acting in feature films

  Background shading indicates actors whose films are currently playing in theaters.

Rank	Voice actor	Worldwide total	Top-grossing film	Films	Average
1	Frank Welker	$15,793,141,099	Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($1,123,794,079)	110	$143,574,010
2	John Ratzenberger	$15,268,166,395	Incredibles 2 ($1,242,805,359)	26	$587,237,169
3	Bob Bergen	$15,458,463,520	Minions ($1,159,398,397)	40	$386,461,588
4	Alan Tudyk	$12,146,623,828	Frozen II ($1,448,800,077)	14	$867,615,987
5	Jess Harnell	$9,992,358,235	Minions ($1,159,398,397)	21	$475,826,583
6	Jack Angel	$8,934,242,501	Toy story 3 ($1,066,969,703)	26	$343,624,712
7	Bill Farmer	$8,920,179,553	' Minions ($1,159,398,397)	22	$405,462,707
8	Sherry Lynn	$8,919,390,247		25	$356,775,610
9	Danny Mann	$8,341,145,950		17	$490,655,644
10	Laraine Newman	$8,010,387,020		19	$421,599,317

Thoughts Fanoflionking 15:36, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I should of said to get info of the second chart a dive into each individual actors pages and added each voice acting gross Fanoflionking 15:49, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

That definitely falls under the category of WP:Original research. What's more, it's wrong. There is no way to get a sum of $12,146,623,828 from 14 films in Alan Tudyk's listed filmography. If you sum up the top 14 grosses you get $12,207,639,656, and if you replace the 14th-highest-grossing film with the 15th-highest-grossing one, you get $12,097,244,478. The highest possible sum overshoots your figure, and the second-highest one is lower than your figure. TompaDompa (talk) 20:07, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Ok so the second chart is OR what dose the first chart count as Fanoflionking 21:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't show us what we are interested in, which is voice acting. For one thing, it doesn't include voice acting in live-action films. For another, it doesn't include supporting roles. What it does however include is animated films where the roles are not solely voice acting. One example of this is Tom Hanks' role in The Polar Express, which is both voice acting and motion capture. That role is included in Hanks' live action roles – the difference between the gross for all his roles ($11,278,011,042 from 63 films) and the gross for his live-action roles ($7,692,914,997 from 56 films) is $3,585,096,045 from 7 films, which I figure are the following from his filmography:

• Toy Story – $364,545,516
• Toy Story 2 – $511,358,276
• Toy Story 3 – $1,068,879,522
• Toy Story 4 – $1,073,394,813
• The Simpsons Movie – $527,071,022
• Magnificent Desolation (where he is the narrator) – $39,846,896
• Killing Lincoln (where he is the narrator) – $0 (television film)

As you can see, this also sums up to $3,585,096,045. The Numbers counts Hanks' role in The Polar Express as a leading role in an animated film, but also as a live-action role. The more I look into their lists, the less reliable they seem for the purposes of this list. I don't think we can use The Numbers at all for this list, frankly. Their quality control is simply not up to snuff. TompaDompa (talk) 22:24, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I think we should carry on using it until we find better sources (a lot of pages do use the number), we should possibly not added voice acting until then Fanoflionking 23:14, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. I think the inaccuracies are so great as to make the source unreliable and thus unusable. I mean, one of the top 10 actor grosses has an error of over $600 million. That's not some minor or trivial error, that's really egregious. If that error has slipped through their net, I wonder what else has. I think we should try to find another source that is more reliable, and scrap the list entirely if we cannot find such a source. TompaDompa (talk) 05:26, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: What do you think? TompaDompa (talk) 15:45, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Few sources are perfect. I think it's good enough to use directly with a specific page stated as source. We shouldn't use it to try to deduce voice acting box office by combining multiple pages in a way the source doesn't. When a whole section is taken directly from The Numbers, we could mention the source in the section itself and not merely in a reference. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

References

Paul Bettany

Paul Bettany's highest grossing film is listed as Avengers: Endgame, however, he doesn't appear in that film at all. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 15:31, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I can't think of any point in the movie in which Vision is portrayed (as a voice or otherwise), but the source lists him as having an acting credit in Endgame. Not sure why. But, per Wikipedia:Verifiability, we have to go by the source instead of original research. I wonder if there's a way to reach out to The-Numbers so they can double-check their accuracy. Useight (talk) 15:46, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I added the maintenance tag back in July. The Numbers is clearly not a reliable source for actor grosses as this is not the only obvious error they have in their list of the top-grossing actors (see previous discussion on this talk page and the other maintenance tags). I have tried to find an alternative source to use without success. I suggest that we scrap this list entirely per WP:DELREASON#7: Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed. TompaDompa (talk) 16:04, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure if deletion is the solution here, but being there's no other reliable source supporting Bettany appearing in the film in any capacity, we can be sure that they are wrong here. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 16:40, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

This is not in relation to the endgame issue, but instead is about the difference between Bettany's "All Roles" total and "Live-action roles" total. Not only does the source miss out his voice appearance in Iron Man from both, but shouldn't Iron Man (if added), Iron Man 2, The Avengers, & Iron Man 3 should all be voice roles, bringing his "Live-action roles" total much lower than is displayed? BigFatBazza (talk) 15:44, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Errors In The List

This list seems to have a number of errors, however when a user tries to fix those errors it gets reverted because "that isn't what the source says" however that isn't a very good excuse if the source we are using for this is verifiably wrong. Hugo Weaving's highest grossing film is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at $1.142 billion and not Transformers: Dark of the Moon at $1.124 billion so that shouldn't be reverted back to what the Numbers source says since we have other sources that show that Hugo Weaving was in a higher grossing film. Paul Bettany was not in Avengers: Endgame (which you can see on his Wikipedia page and the Endgame page as well) and with that movie missing he would not make it in the top 20 of any of these lists. People who try to fix these errors shouldn't be reverted just because we have one source that is incorrect that the majority of this list is relying on. Chukulem (talk) 21:09, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

John R.

Has Anyone Updated John Ratzenbergers box office count from "Soul"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spacecowasd (talk • contribs) 06:36, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Interesting one that is the number dose not included Soul’s $113.9M in this film John had a none speaking role but his likeness is in it. So the question is should we count this or not? I do not think we should, if we did do this and we have to go and do it to other people aswell Fan Of Lion King 🦁 (talk) 20:16, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

References

List of highest-grossing (Hollywood) actors

I believe the article title needs to be "List of highest-grossing (Hollywood) actors". Otherwise, this is misleading and most probably highly inaccurate. Lipwe (talk) 08:07, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The source doesn't say Hollywood but the highest-grossing films are from Hollywood so I wouldn't be surprised if the global top-20 are mainly known as Hollywood actors. Do you have evidence of any missing actors? I have reverted your unsourced claim that the list is for Hollywood actors. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:06, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

All these sources are reporting data pertinent to movies produced in US/Canada.

Please see IMDb which is a more reputable source than "the numbers".

“What do "domestic" and "international" mean?

"Domestic" refers to gross box-office revenue from North America (U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico), unless otherwise noted. "International" covers the rest of the world.”

IMDb | Help https://help.imdb.com/article/imdbpro/industry-research/box-office-mojo-by-imdbpro-faq/GCWTV4MQKGWRAUAP?ref_=helpart_nav_9# (accessed 2022 -03 -10).

“Domestic Box Office

Total money spent on tickets by moviegoers in the “domestic market”, which is defined as the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Guam.

The Numbers - Glossary of Movie Business Terms https://www.the-numbers.com/glossary (accessed 2022 -03 -10)."

However, I will find more sources from other countries that contradict the numbers. Until that I will not change your revision. Lipwe (talk) 09:00, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

All tables except "Earlier eras" show Worldwide total, and the source says "Worldwide Box Office".[2][3][4][5]. It's not important that the source has other pages about domestic (US + Canada) box office. American and a few other English-language films have always dominated the worldwide box office. Number one at List of highest-grossing non-English films#List of highest-grossing films by box office revenue made $913 million. That doesn't make the top-50 at List of highest-grossing films#Highest-grossing films. It's number 62 at https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/all-time. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

If the same actor was in every top-20 film (from four different countries) at List of highest-grossing non-English films#List of highest-grossing films by box office revenue then they would have $11.5 billion and still not make our top-20 at List of highest-grossing actors#All roles. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:29, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I've added separate lists for box office ticket sales, which should address Lipwe's concerns about non-Hollywood actors being represented. Maestro2016 (talk) 16:59, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

They are not the "highest grossing actors" either (international or American) as the stats are not adjusted for inflation - so the article is all a bit pointess. Anna (talk) 14:16, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Samuel L. Jackson

It is listed that Samuel Jackson appeared in Avengers:Endgame as a Lead role.But based on the movie it is a cameo role. BlonkoRook (talk) 11:32, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

The source's classification of roles as lead/supporting/live-action/et cetera is at times dubious, but we don't really have any other alternative than to go by what it says. It is however worth noting that the grosses for "leading roles" include what the source terms "Lead Ensemble Member" roles. TompaDompa (talk) 23:49, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Deciding factor

How can we decide if an actor/actress is in a lead role? I mean what’s the deciding factor or criteria as this is Wikipedia, information should be backed by facts and undisputed factors. Akt 2000 (talk) 07:26, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

We (i.e. Wikipedia editors) don't, we leave it to the sources. TompaDompa (talk) 10:57, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Removal of maintenance templates

@Rockchalk717: Would you care to explain why you don't believe the maintenance templates you removed apply? TompaDompa (talk) 00:49, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

@TompaDompa: For starters I removed one maintenance template, not multiple. Two, everything is verified in the source provided so claim it's inaccurate, is inaccurate. There's nothing more to discuss.--Rockchalk717 00:58, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

You removed one banner template and multiple inline templates. That's multiple maintenance templates. Secondly, surely you understand that sources can be wrong? That's the reason those maintenance templates—banner and inline—were there: because that source appears to be wrong on the basis of being contradicted by other sources. TompaDompa (talk) 01:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Paul Bettany (again), and a proposal to remove the erroneous content about him

@The Transhumanist: The source (https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-star-records/worldwide/lifetime-acting/top-grossing-stars) appears to be wrong. We don't disagree there—I have listed numerous apparent errors here on the talk page and tagged them in the article itself. The problem is that we can't "fix" the list by correcting its errors without engaging in WP:Original research. We can have a list that is consistent with the source—and wrong—or we can have a list that is based on WP:Original research. Obviously neither option is satisfactory, but the latter is prohibited by policy. TompaDompa (talk) 09:21, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

@TompaDompa, JDDJS, and Useight: I'm sure you will agree, that we should weigh all the policies that pertain, starting with the fundamentals. Check out WP:5P2, where it says "All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources, especially when the topic is controversial or is about a living person." The policy Wikipedia:Verifiability states "Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced." The information on Paul Bettany has been shown to be false (see Paul Bettany Explains Why He Was Fine With Being Left Out Of Avengers: Endgame), proving that it was poorly sourced. Based on these reasons, according to policy, the erroneous content should be removed from the article.

Making corrections to Wikipedia is what copy editing is all about, and does not constitute original research. Wikipedia:Original research was written to reinforce Wikipedia:Verifiability, and the very first sentence explaining the policy is "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." The factoid that was listed for Paul Bettany has been shown to be false, and therefore its source (reference) is not reliable, and therefore this misinformation about him is, by definition, original research and also breaks WP:VER.

Therefore, I propose that the erroneous entry on Paul Bettany be removed.    — The Transhumanist   10:13, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Incorrect information that comes from a cited source is neither WP:Original research nor does it fail WP:Verifiability—it's just wrong. Anyway, what alternative are you proposing? If the source is deemed not to be WP:Reliable, the entire list needs to go. We have to be consistent about this. If we are not consistent about this—if we pick and choose—we are unequivocally engaging in WP:Original research. TompaDompa (talk) 10:28, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

If you've proven that it is incorrect information, then it is by definition unverifiable.

Here's the definition of OR again: "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist."

Information that is wrong, that is, erroneous, is not reliable.

No reliable published sources exist for Paul Bettany being in the movie "Avengers: Endgame". Therefore, stating in an article that he was in the movie, fits the definition of OR to a "T"!

And if there's just one bad apple, we throw it away, and not the whole bushel. The source is the material being cited, not the whole website, or even the whole web page. If you wrote a book on geography, and made a mistake in a single sentence, that does not invalidate the whole book. The same thing applies to the New York Times: every once in awhile they publish an article on their website that has a mistake -- that does not make their entire website, or even the whole article, an unreliable source.

All we need to do is remove the error, not the whole article.   — The Transhumanist   10:46, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

You might have had a point if this had been the only error, but it is not. See the comments in other sections on this talk page, as well as the maintenance tags for Alan Tudyk, Warwick Davis, and Vin Diesel. TompaDompa (talk) 11:05, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

The policies on accuracy are pretty clear, and apply to each fact individually. Right now, we are discussing the proposal to remove the erroneous entry on Paul Bettany. After we are done deciding this issue, we can move on to the article's other problems.    — The Transhumanist   11:23, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

That's really not an option here. There needs to be a consistent approach lest we end up with a WP:SYNTH mess. As such, we need to have a plan as to how we are going to move forward. Remember that this is a ranked list—no entry exists in isolation. Now tell me what you would do about missing roles. TompaDompa (talk) 11:34, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

That sounds like all or nothing. There's no consensus for that. Perhaps the best approach is to let other editors edit, and watch Wikipedia:Wiki magic happen.    — The Transhumanist   12:03, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's all or nothing. I would say it's looking at things in context, which is necessary in a case like this. As such, I really would like to know how you think we should handle an actor's gross being too low because a film that should be included by the source isn't. For that matter, what do you think should be done if an actor's gross is too high, but removing the erroneous surplus would drop them down a few spots instead of off the list entirely? These aren't just hypotheticals, such errors are currently present on the list. These are questions that need answers if we are to have any kind of consistent approach to the list. TompaDompa (talk) 12:52, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

@JDDJS, Useight, AverageLogic, Mr TOTEM, Buster Scruggs, ThatEngineer98, DougheGojiraMan, and Rockchalk717: Dear TompaDompa, Why is it necessary to decide on all the errors before making any edits to fix them? This looks very much like you are asserting ownership over the page. A look at the edit history confirms this. You've been undoing the edits of almost everyone who comes along. Your repeated edit summary "The list needs to be updated in its entirety all at once" is unjustified, and is not supported by policy, nor do you have the authority to enforce this custom rule of yours. Meanwhile, in doing so, you've single-handedly negated the main advantage of wiki-collaboration on this article.

According to the edit history, since April 2021 you've been disallowing editors from fixing problems on the page unless they overhaul the whole thing in a single edit, yet you won't fix the errors on the page yourself. You have been forcing a version of the page that you know to be erroneous.

You should let the Wikipedia community fix the errors in the article. A good place to start is for you to allow the Paul Bettany entry to be removed, as it is erroneous: it states he was in a movie that he wasn't, and that movie's gross is included in the actor's total, inappropriately elevating his rank resulting in him being in the top 20 when he really isn't.    — The Transhumanist   10:40, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with removing Paul Bettany's entry as well as resolving the other numerous errors in the table. If there are known aberrations to the source then they should be fixed. The only reason I hadn't done it previously is because I was uncertain as to if it constituted original research, but I believe now that if it's fine for articles like the List of highest-grossing films one to make corrections/adjustments from the totals given on the source due to clear error, then it should be fine to correct the totals on this article as well. AverageLogic (talk) 11:10, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Bro, what did I do...? DougheGojiraMan (talk) 14:18, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

P.S.: I've pinged those you've reverted (as explained above), so that they can join this discussion.

@The Transhumanist: Why is it necessary to decide on all the errors before making any edits to fix them? It's a ranked list. The positions matter. Fixing errors would mean adjusting ranks. If we don't have a consistent approach, we end up with a WP:SYNTH mess.

"The list needs to be updated in its entirety all at once" is unjustified It's a ranked list. Surely you understand that if we update some of the entries but not the rest, we are misrepresenting the cited source? We can't give the gross for actor X as of 2023, actor Y as of 2017, and actor Z as of 2011 if their grosses have changed in the meantime. The list also has a "The list is updated as of [date]" note at the top to inform the reader of how up-to-date (or out-of-date) the list is. TompaDompa (talk) 16:49, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I've been referring to the errors on the page. They should be removed or fixed. By the way, each cell should include citations individually, rather than providing a citation for a column — the column citations should be removed, and copied to the relevant cells, so that changes and corrections can be made that affect columns without misrepresenting cited sources.    — The Transhumanist   09:28, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Removing or fixing errors is a nice ambition to have, but the devil is in the details. It is extremely easy to end up with a whole bunch of WP:Original research, both because what types of appearances should count is debatable and because different sources disagree about individual films' grosses. I also don't think adding citations to the cells with the figures is a good idea—it would make the table very cluttered—but we do have a reference column to use. That's the approach used for e.g. List of highest-grossing films, a WP:Featured list. TompaDompa (talk) 09:37, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

The devilish debatable stuff is why we have talk pages. As for references, I'm not opposed to a column for those.    — The Transhumanist   06:35, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Right, and it's generally a better idea to sort out the details ahead of time rather than go off half-cocked. Which is why I asked what you think should be done about the other errors—a patchwork of case-by-case approaches results in issues that a systematic approach does not. As for the reference column, it already exists and it looks rather odd to additionally have references in the cells with the figures as you have done. TompaDompa (talk) 13:22, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Weighing in on the proposal to remove the Paul Bettany entry

• Remove - as explained above.    — The Transhumanist   10:13, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
• Remove as we unequivocally know this fact to be incorrect. We can deal with all the other problems later, but we can't keep information we know to be incorrect in the article. —El Millo (talk) 17:27, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
• Remove or at least include a note on his inclusion about it being controversial. We have reliable sources that say he's not in the film. [6][7][8] To say he's not in the film is in no way Original Research. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 00:21, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

  For the record, there already is a note to that effect. It was added in March 2021. TompaDompa (talk) 01:04, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

  That's a tag, not a note. Tags are supposed to be temporary, just to bring notice to an issue that needs to be resolved. JDDJS (talk to me • see what I've done) 01:48, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

  Ah. I'm guessing you mean something like an explanatory footnote, then? TompaDompa (talk) 01:51, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

• (copied from above) I agree with removing Paul Bettany's entry as well as resolving the other numerous errors in the table. If there are known aberrations to the source then they should be fixed. The only reason I hadn't done it previously is because I was uncertain as to if it constituted original research, but I believe now that if it's fine for articles like the List of highest-grossing films one to make corrections/adjustments from the totals given on the source due to clear error, then it should be fine to correct the totals on this article as well. AverageLogic (talk) 11:10, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
• Remove. Information that is included in Wikipedia should be sourced, yes. But nothing everything that is sourced is required to be included. Useight (talk) 21:50, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I've removed the Paul Bettany entry.    — The Transhumanist   06:35, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Vin Diesel

I know that the source excludes Avengers: Endgame from his roster (for some unknown reason) but, that's his highest-grossing movie regardless of him not being credited as a lead actor due to the circumstances of the previous movie. Saying that Avengers: Infinity War is his highest-grossing movie is somewhat misleading, especially due to the same circumstances of Infinity War being the reason why Benedict Cumberbatch and Chris Pratt aren't credited as lead actors in Endgame, despite Endgame being listed as their highest-grossing movie. 4TheLuvOfFax (talk) 15:13, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Don’t leave me on this planet alone !! 2607:FB91:3F37:2395:30B6:FDD0:3E46:8556 (talk) 13:54, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

He is the best 2601:14D:8702:BC90:F0FC:11AB:2FC8:5EDE (talk) 05:59, 10 December 2023 (UTC)