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That same year, Mr. Depp made us all swoon as an angel-faced gypsy in Chololat and cringe in a dual performance in Before Night Falls that cannot be described, just seen. So good, so versatile, so indie.

But forget about success. What about awards? What does Bale have to say about not getting serious Oscar attention for American Psycho? Does it bother Depp that his films garnered six nominations between them and none for him? No way, we thought, it's all about the craft.

Both of these guys had made their careers out of resisting fame, which had earned them serious cult followings - Entertainment Weekly named Bale as one of the past decade's Top Eight Most Powerful Cult Figures. Depp's colorful collaborations with Tim Burton (Depp has claimed that "If he wants me to have sex with an aardvark in one of his next movies, then I will do that" - be careful what you wish for, Johnny) and Bale's turns in films like Velvet Goldmine, Swing Kids and his astonishing debut Empire of the Sun made them actors that audiences felt an intimate connection with. Each new performance was a gift. You could never tell what they would do next. The dedication to their craft inspired fans to believe that this was truly their passion and no amount of money would make them compromise it.

There was another film that came out in 2000. A little flick called X-Men. A good movie that I will always watch for at least ten minutes if I come across it on HBO, X-Men is the film that started it all. Spider-Man, Superman, The Hulk, Iron Man, Punisher, Hellboy, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Sin City, Watchmen, and...Batman. If the '70s were about the new Hollywood, the '80s were about bad action and the '90s were about indie films, the Aughts were about superhero movies.

All of a sudden, actors had the chance to literally live out the boyhood fantasies that led them to their current profession. And, for better or for worse, live them out they did. With the superhero film alive and well after being suffocated by Joel Schumacher in the late '90s, leading men were lining up around the block for a chance to put on a rubber suit, sans nipples.

But it didn't take long before studios realized that the box office draw was not the man in the costume but the costume itself. And that having a good actor such as Tobey Maguire behind the mask was more important than just any celebrity (ahem, Ben Affleck!) to get people to the theatre. So the search was on for legit thespians. Sadly, the producers of Ghost Rider didn't get the memo.

This whole good actors/big movies thing spread like wildfire. The senior section of the British actor registry was ransacked from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter alone. The trend even spread to directors, with the men behind Evil Dead, The Usual Suspects and Memento helming Spider-Man, Superman and Batman respectively.

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