bderoes's profile
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Monday, May 14th, 2018

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Name Pages: Show cast credits screen billing rank

I would like to see a number beside each role in an actor's credits showing the number at which the credit was listed.

Ex: 
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043081/
has cast list starting with 

Complete credited cast:
Jane PowellJane Powell...Patti Robinson
Ricardo MontalbanRicardo Montalban...Demi Armendez

I would like to see on Jane Powell's page for this film that her character name was
Patti Robinson (billed: 1)

And on Ricardo Montalban's page:
Demi Armendez (billed: 2)

and so on, for all credited cast. 

This is interesting for tracking the rise and fall of a career. (Of course, sometimes we get "special" billing for the biggest star that does NOT land first, but surrounding works will likely show the overall status.)
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8 years ago

Hi bderoes,

I fully understand your interest in tracking the career status. But don't major feature films credit their cast in order of appearance, which has very little to tell with the actual character importance in the film?

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Not true of The Greatest Showman, Black Panther, or Hidden Figures.

I know "in order of appearance" billing happens, not sure how often, but I think stars are still billed first "most" of the time.

Certainly the careers I'm most interested in, for Classic Hollywood, stars are billed first almost all the time. 

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Agree for Classics :) But for recent (US) films, my observation leads to think that the majority of them are "in order of appearance".

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I named 3 recent US films above: The Greatest ShowmanBlack Panther, or Hidden Figures where the billing was stars first.

When I look at the new movies for this week, I see stars billed first (on the movie cards):
https://www.imdb.com/movies-in-theaters/

What examples can you cite?

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Quite a few I have seen (again) recently:
Suite française (Matthias Schoenarts co-stars but shows at about rank 20)
3 Billboards (Woody Harrelson ranks 8)
Fantastic Beasts
La La Land
Never Let Me Go (Keira Knightley ranks 19)

I admit it looks that there are fewer than what I noticed a few years back, and moreover the indication "in order of appearance" seems gone. And I like it better when stars are billed first!

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When I look at La La Land, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are 1 & 2. Don't know why you included that on your list. 

I think star power still drives whether a film gets made, and how it's advertised. I would think stars and their agents want the stars billed accordingly. 

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La La Land: It is because they are the two main actors appearing on screen, but look down, the rest of the main cast is by order of appearance (I have seen the movie at least 5 times :)

Just to play by devil's advocate, a cast by order of appearance can make sense when you do not know the names and want to identify a character. Often their names are not obvious or explicit, so appearance order is a good way to track them.

Anway, it would be good to have an "official" IMDb reaction to your proposal.