So what changed? It certainly doesn’t hurt that Elba anchored a major movie this year as the romantic lead of The Mountain Between Us. The movie was more or less sold on the back of the idea that it sure sounds nice to be stranded on a mountain with no one but Idris Elba and a cute dog, and though it wasn’t quite a runaway success — scraping in a respectable $62 million worldwide on a $35 million budget — it did help make Elba a known brand.