I still think it's box office/household name status rather than an indication of quality though. Matt Damon and The Rock are probably the two surest box office bets in the industry right now and I wouldn't call either the best in the business (The Rock is downright bad and pretty much always in bad movies)

Same applies for music. I'm sure you would agree the current A-listers in music (Swift, Wallen, Malone, etc.) don't make the best music despite their popularity

a white person writing black people in a waffle house plot would be in many cases be awkward. Me personally at least for a main character I like the writers to be the same race or have a lot of knowledge about that background. I do want more weird black lead main character movies its part of why I love Peele

DDL can walk into nearly any room & lil bro every actor in it despite relatively humble box office for the length of his career, is he not A List? it’s an almost arbitrary term, if huge studios are green lighting films based on your involvement what else are you?, if you command among the highest salaries in the industry what else are you? thats a separate discussion from the whole convoluted movie star discourse

if someone cant write a Black character without relying on “awkward” tropes, maybe they shouldnt be making movies. again none of the plot details even lend itself to anything nefarious so idg the argument, even if i have the same preference (re: Black stories by Black creatives). its also very obvious who the predominant workforce of that establishment is, no matter how u put it.

Not even about awkward tropes alone its about the best writing . Damon Lindelof David Simon ace it but me personally most of the time its not done. I like black creatives doing it if possible

Always worried when I don't see the director mentioned prominently. The guy has made one other film which is not widely distributed thus far

It's a combination of recognizability and box office draw in my opinion

Yeah A-List is traditionally held as what you said box office history, recognizability, and potential box office success if hired.