2010 was a weirdly pivotal year for Hollywood. If you look back at the tabloid cycles and the box office reports, everything felt like it was shifting. The era of the "unreachable movie star" was starting to fade as social media took over, but one person still held the crown with an iron grip. Honestly, looking at Angelina Jolie in 2010 is like looking at the last time a single actress could dominate the global news cycle just by existing. She wasn't tweeting. She wasn't doing TikTok dances. She was just... Jolie.
She was thirty-five. That’s a specific kind of sweet spot in a career where the "wild child" narrative of the late nineties had finally been replaced by this powerhouse image of a mother, a UN diplomat, and a genuine action hero. Most people remember 2010 as the year of Salt and The Tourist, but it was actually about the consolidation of her brand. She became a business. A phenomenon.
The Salt Gamble and the Gender Swap
Let's talk about Salt. It’s a movie that basically shouldn't have worked. Originally, the script was written for Tom Cruise. It was titled Edwin A. Salt. Cruise eventually passed because he felt the character was too close to Ethan Hunt from Mission: Impossible. Most studios would have just grabbed another guy—maybe Matt Damon or a rising star. Instead, they flipped the script. Literally.
They changed Edwin to Evelyn.
When Salt hit theaters in July 2010, it proved something the industry was still skeptical about: Angelina Jolie could out-earn the boys in a straight-up, gritty action flick. It wasn't a "female" action movie with high-heels and winks to the camera. It was brutal. She did her own stunts. She jumped off highway overpasses onto moving trucks.
The film pulled in nearly $300 million worldwide. That’s a massive win for an original R-rated (or hard PG-13) spy thriller not based on a comic book. It cemented the idea that Angelina Jolie in 2010 was the only woman in Hollywood who could get a green light for a $100 million budget solely on her name. No franchise required.
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The Venice Frenzy and The Tourist
Then came The Tourist. If Salt was about grit, The Tourist was about old-school glamour.
Critics absolutely hated it. They trashed it. They called it slow, boring, and chemistry-free. But here’s the thing—the public didn't care. Seeing Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp together on screen in Venice was the ultimate "event" movie. It was the peak of the Brangelina era's aesthetic dominance.
The production was a circus. Everywhere they went in Venice, paparazzi were following the boats. It’s hard to overstate how much the media obsessed over her wardrobe in that film. The beige capes, the silk dresses, the updos. It created a specific "Jolie Aesthetic" that lifestyle magazines are still trying to replicate today.
Despite the reviews, it made over $278 million. People just wanted to look at her.
Beyond the Screen: The Humanitarian Reality
If you only look at the movies, you miss why she actually mattered that year. In early 2010, the earthquake in Haiti happened.
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While other stars were recording "We Are the World" covers, Jolie was on the ground. She and Brad Pitt donated $1 million through the Jolie-Pitt Foundation to Doctors Without Borders almost immediately. She visited Port-au-Prince. She visited children's hospitals.
She also spent time in Pakistan after the devastating floods later that year. This wasn't a PR stunt. By 2010, she had been a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador for nearly a decade. She was starting to transition from "famous person who helps" to a legitimate policy influencer. You’d see her in a muddy t-shirt in a refugee camp one week and then on a red carpet in Milan the next. That duality is what made her 2010 run so unique.
The Brangelina "Golden Age"
We have to talk about the family. In 2010, the Jolie-Pitt clan was the closest thing the world had to a global royal family. They had six kids by then: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne.
Every time they moved—whether it was to a chateau in France or a rental in New Orleans—the local economy basically spiked. In 2010, they were often seen in New Orleans while Brad filmed Moneyball and then in Europe for The Tourist.
The narrative around her had shifted. A few years prior, she was the "villain" in the Jennifer Aniston breakup story. By 2010, she was the matriarch. She had successfully navigated one of the biggest PR nightmares in Hollywood history and come out the other side as a respected figure of domesticity and global activism. It was a masterclass in brand evolution.
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Why 2010 Was the End of an Era
Looking back, Angelina Jolie in 2010 represents the last gasp of the traditional "Superstar."
Shortly after this, the Marvel Cinematic Universe took over. The "Star" became the "IP." People stopped going to see movies because Angelina Jolie was in them and started going because Captain America was in them. She saw this coming. She started moving toward directing.
She began filming In the Land of Blood and Honey in late 2010. It was a massive risk—a film about the Bosnian War, spoken in local languages, dealing with horrific trauma. She wanted to be more than a face. She wanted to be a voice.
The Real Impact
If you’re trying to understand her career, don't look at the Oscars she won earlier. Look at 2010. It was the year she realized she didn't need Hollywood as much as Hollywood needed her. She used that leverage to pivot into directing and more serious political advocacy.
She proved that a woman over 30 could lead an action franchise and a romantic drama in the same twelve-month span and win at both.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Historians
If you're researching this era or trying to understand the "Jolie Effect," here is how to actually digest that period:
- Watch Salt for the technicality. Pay attention to the stunts. Most of what you see is actually her. It’s a masterclass in physical acting before CGI took over every frame.
- Study the 2010 UNHCR reports. If you want to see her "work," read her field notes from Haiti and Pakistan. They are more telling than any interview she gave to Vogue.
- Analyze the "Pivot." 2010 is the year she stopped playing the game. If you’re a creator or a brand, look at how she transitioned from being the subject of the news to the person controlling the narrative through her own projects.
- Ignore the "The Tourist" reviews. Watch it for the cinematography and the styling. It’s an exercise in high-budget atmospheric filmmaking that doesn't really exist anymore in the era of streaming.
2010 wasn't just another year in the life of a celebrity. It was the year Angelina Jolie became a permanent fixture in the global consciousness, independent of her roles or her partner. She became the archetype for the modern multi-hyphenate star.