Clint Eastwood's 5 Highest Grossing Films as Director

At 81, Clint Eastwood will have his film J. Edgar on the big screen in less than a week.

Not-adjusted for inflation, here are Eastwood's highest grossing domestic box office takes.

1. Gran Torino (2008) $148 million
2. Unforgiven (1992) $102 million
3. Million Dollar Baby (2004) $100 million
4. Space Cowboys (2000) $90.4 million
5. Mystic River (2003) $90.1 million

One of the things that sticks out to me, is that Eastwood has a staring role in each of these films, with the exception of Mystic River.

Other film efforts, absence his acting skills, most recently, Hereafter (2010; 32 million), Invictus (2010; 37 million), Changeling (2008; 35 million), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006, 13 million), and Flags of Our Fathers (2006, 33 million), have performed much worse.

J. Edgar seems like the big type of film that does well, but looking at these numbers, I have to wonder if J. Edgar will suffer. Perhaps Eastwood as director is making the simple casting error of not directing projects where he can direct himself in the lead role.