Watching ROTK on A&E and it dawned on me how despite the box office and Oscars (underserved. Master & Commander was better and holds up 15 years later)), no one became a star out of this.

Ian achieved equal or greater stardom from X Men
Elijah?
Sean Astin, the one member of the cast everyone thought should have gotten an Oscar nom? Where is he now?
Viggo, we know, didn't seek stardom.
Didn't Dominic Monaghan go bankrupt?
Hugo Weaving had The Matrix
Has anyone seen Liv Tyler lately?
Jonathan Rhys-Davies has enjoyed a solid if unremarkable career as a character actor.
Orlando Bloom kinda sank after the disaster of Elizabethtown. OTOH he's banging Katy Perry so I don't feel too bad for him.

No one got a career boost out of this movie, it seems.

Or am I missing something?

I don't know about any of that, but crazy that it came out 18 years ago.

Uh..while Liv Tyler has disappeared almost all of them have continued to work consistently. Mortensen was just in another Best Picture Award winner.

Ian McKellan has been nominated for Oscars (2). and of course, incredible success as Magneto in X-Men franchise. among so many others. Elijah had a successful tv series on FX, some movies, Sean Astin, pretty much doing what he did before, nothing great, but still around. Viggo is huge and great and nominated multiple times as well. he just chooses no spotlight. but raves in everything else. Hugo Weaving is still everywhere. Red Skull, much more. i don't know how much better it can get for the young and old in that cast...

Dominic Monaghan was only on the biggest television show of the 00's (Lost) and translated that into his own pet project Wild Things nature/tv show.

He hasn't been Red Skull since Captain America The First Avenger. He was replaced in the last two Avengers movies.

Agree that "Master and Commander" is also a great movie. But tough calling it a better film than "Return of the King". Equal for sure IMO.

I think Billy Boyd is the one who went bankrupt years ago. Dominic banged Evangeline Lilly for 5 years, so there's that.

And that is good. So very good...for him.

Seriously, he should be 3/4 of the way to an EGOT by now. Where is the justice in this world?

All right then, I stand corrected.

But I still say M&C was better than ROTK. It was supposed to be the start of a franchise, one I would much rather see.

And yet... barely anyone in the general public would remember it.

Ian was a huge star BEFORE LOTR and X-Men. I can't believe anyone would even suggest otherwise.
Viggo IS a huge star. He's been nominated for three Oscars and been in two Best Picture winners.

This is what I hate about awards, because I agree with you that Master and Commander is a brilliant film, but because of stupid statues, people feel the need to pit great films against each other and trash one in the process (and sorry if this comes across as picking on you, because I do not intend it that way).

I still maintain that Dances with Wolves is a great film, but it gets bashed constantly because it won the Oscar over Goodfellas.

Andy Serkis got pretty famous off it.

Plus other than Gollum, McKellen and Lee the acting never really raised above what it needed to be (it was never bad, just never really any showy pieces).

Everybody played their part well, though, but the effects, directing and world building were the stars of that franchise.

That Peter Jackson guy got some run too.

I mean, you can say similar things about the main cast of Star Wars (either trilogy, if you argue that Ford got more notoriety out of Indiana Jones and certainly not his acting skills in Star Wars). Even though the prequels had a lot of name actors I doubt anyone really discovered them via those movies.