Ranker Spotlight:

Ryan Reynolds

Since popping onto the film scene in the 2000s in comedies like National Lampoon’s Van Wilder and Waiting…, Ryan Reynolds has gone from being America’s favorite sardonic slacker to a beloved, multifaceted superstar. Reynolds has earned critical praise for his largely dramatic role in Adventureland, helmed a record-breaking superhero film franchise, and maintains a lovable online repartee with his wife and fellow actor/troll Blake Lively. All that goes a long way toward explaining the actor’s appeal, which has led thousands of Ranker voters to make their overwhelmingly positive opinions known on lists that feature Reynolds.

As the world awaits the release this month of Free Guy, a film from Disney starring Reynolds as a background character in a violent video game, Ranker is taking the opportunity to learn more about the Deadpool star’s fan base. Who loves to watch Ryan Reynolds on the big screen? To whom should Disney be reaching out to maximize Free Guy’s box office performance, and where can the studio find these fans? These are all questions we sought to answer with the help of Ranker Insights.

How Ryan Reynolds Ranks on Ranker

Very few actors get the kind of love Ryan Reynolds does on Ranker, except for maybe Tom Hanks. But even Hanks’s popularity ends up being a boon to Reynolds, who is #1 on our list  Which Young Actor Is The Next Tom Hanks? (7.9K votes). If you’re even vaguely familiar with Hanks’s performance on lists across Ranker, you understand what a massive compliment that is.

But Reynolds is more than just an actor who approximates Tom Hanks: he’s also the #4 Coolest Actor In The World Right Now (195K votes), the #5 Hottest Male Celebrity Of All Time (3 million votes), and the #8 Most Charming Man Alive (41K votes). Ranker data says that those who voted up Reynolds on the Hottest Male Celebrities list are significantly more likely to be 50 or older — he must have an old-fashioned sex appeal!

You’d think that being one of the coolest, hottest, most charming people in history would make a person seem unapproachable, but Reynolds is also #11 on our list of Famous Men You’d Want To Have A Beer With (1.2 million votes). Reynolds does better among Southern voters on this list than with people in any other region of the US.

What Do Reynolds’s Fans Love?

Tens of thousands of votes have been cast for Ryan Reynolds on some of Ranker’s most popular celebrity lists. What and who else do those fans vote for? Ranker Insights can tell us more about the likes and dislikes of the actor’s biggest fans.

Other Celebrities

Another celebrity who manages to project both coolness and approachability is Paul Rudd, so it’s no surprise that fans of Reynolds are 9X more likely to also love the Ant-Man star (since Disney owns the rights to Rudd’s superhero film, they might consider targeting its fans with ads for Free Guy). Reynolds’s fans are similarly 9X more likely to be drawn to Ryan Gosling (a slightly more aloof-seeming blond Canadian actor named Ryan), as well as Magic Mike and Logan Lucky star Channing Tatum. Finally, Ryan Reynolds’s fanatics are 7X more likely to also love the work of Terry Crews — good reason for Disney to advertise on NBC during the premiere of Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s final season, which happens to be a day before Free Guy opens.

The preferences of Reynolds’s fans differ slightly depending on what they like about the actor. Those who love Ryan because they believe he’s either “cool” or “talented” are particularly likely to also love Chris Pratt, while those who find Reynolds “attractive” are more likely to be fans of Chris Evans. People who vote up Reynolds on lists that indicate he’s “important” are 9X more likely to also like Matt Bomer, and those who like Reynolds because he’s “funny" are 7X more likely to love Michael J. Fox and Seth Rogen.

Movies

Unsurprisingly, the two movies Reynolds’s fans are most likely to love are Deadpool 2 and Deadpool — more surprisingly, they love the two movies in that order, as they’re 8X more likely to love the sequel and 7X more likely to love the original. Beyond the Deadpool films, the actor’s fan base is 5X more likely to love family-friendly action-adventure fare like Guardians of the Galaxy, Pixar’s Up, Moana, and the 1995 Robin Williams classic Jumanji (good news for Disney, because it’s rated PG-13). Still, given that they’re also 5X more likely to enjoy John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, it’s safe to say that a healthy portion of Reynolds’s fans are still given to more adult-directed action films.

Sports

Of the athletes Ryan Reynolds’s fans are most likely to support, five of the Top 10 are NBA players. That indicates Disney should consider advertising on Peacock, which won the rights to stream the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, featuring NBA pros like Khris Middleton and Kevin Durant representing Team USA. 

These stories are crafted using Ranker Insights, which takes over one billion votes cast on Ranker.com and converts them into actionable psychographics about pop culture fans across the world. To learn more about how our Ranker Insights can be customized to serve your business needs, visit insights.ranker.com, or email us at insights@ranker.com.

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