So, yeah, your post kinda supports what I was saying. The three you named at the start are from decades-old movies.
Part of the point I was trying to make (and I see that tzachs has brought it up while I was writing) was that it's hard to tell in real-time, particularly as you get older, which characters are going to become pop-culture icons. In 1998, I don't think anyone would have named The Dude as a character that would still be part of pop culture twenty years later.
I wouldn't personally rank John Wick as a new icon (he... has a dog and is good at killing people?) – I'd think Liam Neeson in
Taken is more iconic (though I have no idea what his character's name is, which isn't a great sign) – but what do I know?
Tyler Durden was originally from a best-selling book so no real risk taken there either.
Fight Club was no more than a cult book when the movie was made, so plenty of risk was taken. (In fact, I seem to remember that the film was a box office failure in its initial run.)
The Marvel characters are already established and even if only the fans went to the movies the studios would turn a profit. Again, low-risk.
I think you're massively overestimating the number of comic book fans. Best-selling comic titles are usually only at about 200k copies, with about 7 million comics sold
in total each month. Solo opened to $84 million in its first weekend and is considered a flop. No big-budget movie can rely only on comic book fans or scifi fans and make a profit.
The other book-series adaptations you mentioned were all best-sellers before they became movies. So all low-risk, high-potential-profit characters.
I think we're focusing on different things. There have always been lots of movies adapted from books and other source material. Does that mean that characters like James Bond, the Godfather(s), Hannibal Lecter, Inigo Montoya, Holly Golightly, Roy Batty, Jack Torrance, Forrest Gump, Norman Bates, John McClane or Dorothy Gale shouldn't be counted as "new iconic movie characters" back when they
first appeared on screen?
I can understand not giving credit for adapting or re-adapting characters like Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, and OK, even famous superheroes and
The Lord of the Rings. But Tyler Durden or Katniss Everdeen (much less crazy-haired Hunger Games presenter guy) would not be widely recognized characters today if not for the movies they were in. (And Lisbeth Salander is probably a bit borderline as an iconic character even with several movie adaptions.)
It gets a bit trickier with recent books that were
huge in their own right. Atticus Finch is an iconic movie character, but the book was already a massive hit. Same with Harry Potter. But even if kids of that generation would know Hermione and Voldemort and Dumbledore regardless, do you really think they would come up in a discussion between you and me if not for the movies?
And Elsa and Anna? Are they really iconic characters or just characters in a hit film? I mean, I'd be pretty surprised to see them on any adult's top ten favorite characters list.
Absolutely they are. And sure they're for kids, but I don't see how that makes them any less iconic. (And I think failure to appear on lists is partly a matter of time, partly of who makes the lists, and partly a general tendency to overlook animated characters.)
Walter White (TV character. Was talking about Hollywood.)
Donald Draper (I don't know who that is.)
I think there is a point to be made that a lot of the more creative, interesting work has shifted over to TV. On the other hand, the TV landscape is so fractured that it's really hard for even great characters to become
iconic.
