Ewan McGregor stars in The Island, co-produced by DreamWorks and Warner Bros., that opened this weekend to a tune of $12 million dollars in 3,122 theaters. His previous movie, Revenge of the Sith opened with $108m in 3,661 theaters.

This makes me wonder if it is the actor or the director that causes such dramatic changes in box office totals. Opening totals are often misleading because a movie might only be in two or three theaters in the opening weekend. However, the Island (which I had not heard of until Thursday evening when I saw a brief commercial for it) opened in the number of theaters consistent with a blockbuster.

I am out of the market for movies, but Box Office Mojo seems to put the failure at the feet of the director.

McGregor's films have displayed significant variance (although whether more or less than other actors/actresses I haven't gathered the data to say): His average opening is approximately $15m with a standard deviation of $30m. However, this includes only four films that have opened with more than $15m, the three Star Wars movies and Robots.

McGregor's films average $78.5 million in total gross revenues during their domestic theater run. The average is not too bad. However, The Island cost $122m to make and will probably not earn anywhere close to McGregor's average, much less turn a profit.

The lack of profit is surprisingly common in Hollywood. Like venture capitalists, oil wildcatters, and other similar industries, it seems that the studios throw money after a lot of projects that end up not panning out - even while it would seem that the "formula" for making a successful movie is fairly well understood at this point.

I understand the studios taking a shotgun approach to the industry, but what about the actor/actress? It does seem that some stars go through oscillations in their quality of work, such as Keanu Reeves and John Travolta. Perhaps a movie that doesn't generate a lot of revenue satisfies some part of the actor's idiosyncratic artisitic desires - Battlefield Earth comes to mind. On the other hand, perhaps actors agree to the script before knowing how bad the production will be, but with sufficient reputation at stake might purchase insurance against a flop? Finally, in the case of McGregor, I wonder if he really is an actor that can generate Revenge of the Sith type revenues on his own.

I think Box Office Mojo is right - the lack of excitement for The Island is likely not the fault of McGregor.