Two points here:
The two examples you've cited contain loads of actors playing semi-important characters that the average person wouldn't have recognised (or possibly even still recognise).
Up until HP4 all of the main antagonists were played by "not popular" actors, and even then I'm unsure whether the intended audience (teens) would have recognised Ralph Fiennes either. Furthermore, I would have guessed that most teens would have completely failed a pop quiz to identify any of the more famous actors in any of the HP films (with possible exceptions of Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman).
Examples:
Richard Harris
Maggie Smith
David Thewlis
Michael Gambon
Robbie Coltrane
Richard Griffiths
Timothy Spall
Second point - Since when are Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer "not familiar actors"?
I would agree with your general point if you were talking about getting funding that bankable actors/film staff are important, but your did orientate your point towards audiences, and while I would agree to some extent, it's not as important IMO.
I think you completely missed my point. It was an either or situation. Harry Potter didn't need big name actors, because it was a big name book that a huge number of people were familiar with.
Unknown stories generally need big name actors to attract people to the movie.
Unknown stories with unknown actors - very risky for the film companies to produce. (Though, I won't lump the attractiveness of broader topics into "unknown stories" - e.g., jurassic park. Because, "Dinosaurs! Let's go see it!" Think about it - and maybe I am wrong - out of the thousands and thousands of movies, how many blockbuster hits were about unfamiliar stories, with unknown actors/actresses? I'm sure there are a few. Now, how many complete piece of crap movies made a huge profit - because they had very popular actors or actresses? I'm guessing that set of movies is much larger. Also, popular stories turned into movies - how many of these had crappy acting, yet made money? Again, probably more success stories than with the unknown story/unknown star group.
I googled.
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/14387/12-unknown-actors-cast-in-major-blockbusters Look at the list of movies that these unknown actors became famous in - virtually every movie is a big name story. Thor, Superman, etc. People are going to go to the movie regardless of who the actor is. They know the basic theme of the story. Sure, there are some movies with unknown actors and stories that have been successful (e.g., Slumdog Millionaire), but those are in the minority. And it explains why big name stars command such high salaries - if you could get the same box office revenues from an unknown actor would would be happy with $100k salary, then why do you pay these big names millions of dollars??
I prefer The Godfather as well, but Shawshank is still a good film.
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