Who Is The Highest Paid Actor In The World?

Jeff D Lowe8/22/2019 8:48 PM

Any guesses who it is? We will reveal the highest-paid actor at the end of the blog…

A bankable leading man is still one of Hollywood’s surest bets, even if your name isn’t Leonardo DiCaprio. While the lucrative twenty-twenty deal ($20 million upfront and 20% of gross profit) doled out to the likes of Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise may be more or less gone, Hollywood still has its big-money brands, those actors who can promise an audience so big that they command not only an eight-figure salary to show up on set but also a decent chunk of a film’s nebulous “pool”—or the money left over after some but not all of the bills are paid.
Dwayne Johnson, also known as the Rock, tops the Forbes list of the world’s ten highest-paid actors, collecting $89.4 million between June 1, 2018, and June 1, 2019. (via Forbes)

Obviously, more than just movies goes into this, but I figured I’d compare the average Rotten Tomatoes scores for all of the actors’ movies released in the time frame for the list. Let’s count it down…

Will Smith only starred in one movie in 2019…

‘Aladdin’ was an okay movie and, surprisingly after some ghastly trailers, Will Smith was the best part of the movie. The Rotten Tomatoes score is a little lower (approval and amount of reviews 70-or-above) than I think it should be, but what isn’t low was the money Disney made with ‘Aladdin’. The House of Mouse racked up over $1 billion for the live-action remake, which helped pad Smith’s stats.

This makes me so fucking happy, man. No one is a bigger Paul Rudd fan than me and I love seeing him alongside the big boys of Hollywood.

Paul Rudd has a high Rotten Tomatoes score thanks in part to ‘Avengers: Endgame’, but also a rating for ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ (88%) that some people might find a touch high. Regardless, he is a fucking national treasure and I will leave you with these scene from ’40-Year-Old Virgin’…

Perfection.

Captain America himself raked in a ton of cash thanks to Avengers as well (a common theme here). He wasn’t in any other movies, so, did you know he also did a Netflix movie that released in July? Here’s the trailer…

It has a low critics score of 33% but a pretty solid audience score with 81%. No matter what, we can only say one thing: thank you, old ass Captain America.

The king of Netflix released four movies in the time frame Forbes used for their list: ‘Murder Mystery’ (Netflix), ‘Hotel Transylvania 3′, Fart Cop 4 and ‘Adam Sandler: 100% Fresh’ (Netflix). Sandler has had multiple exclusive deals with Netflix and he is getting a shit load of money for it. One of the movies from this year, ‘Murder Mystery’, had (according to Netflix) a very high viewer count…

Impressive.

The Rotten Tomatoes score is not all that high here and it would be even worse if not for his fairly enjoyable stand-up comedy movie.

What a year for Bradley Cooper, my goodness. He has the highest Rotten Tomatoes average (92%) on the list for people with more than one movie. His movies were also dynamite with both ‘A Star is Born’ (should’ve won Best Actor at the Oscars) and the biggest movie of all time, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (he voices Rocket, for those unaware).

Oh, also this…

Cooper is just straight up, without question, the fucking man.

Jackie Chan is a legend and (clearly) loaded. He only starred in one movie during the timeframe, a Chinese movie titled ‘The Knight of Shadows: Between Yin and Yang’. I don’t know much about it, and I don’t want to pretend to, so enjoy this instead…

(Okay, I hit my two Tim & Eric video quota)

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Akshay Kumar was rolling in cash in 2018 and 2019. For those who don’t know who he is, his Wikipedia page will supply you with the information…

Akshay Kumar, is an Indian-born Canadian actor, producer, television personality, martial artist, stuntman and philanthropist who works in Bollywood films. In a career spanning over 29 years, Kumar has appeared in over 100 films and has won several awards, including the National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance in Rustom (2016), and two Filmfare Awards for Ajnabee (2001) and Garam Masala (2005). (via Wikipedia)

His latest movie, which isn’t included in the list’s numbers, is called ‘Mission Mangal’ and is apparently tearing up the box office…

Mission Mangal is the incredible true story behind India’s mission to Mars. It shows how Rakesh Dhawan (Akshay Kumar) and Tara Shinde (Vidya Balan) together with a team of brilliant scientists successfully sent a satellite to Mars in their very first attempt, a mammoth feat achieved by no other nation. This is a tale of inspiration which shows how dreams transform into reality with a vision, the courage to pursue it and fulfill it with sheer determination.

Some of those special effects at the end are rough, but it seems like a good time. Kumar’s Rotten Tomatoes average is very low, but it doesn’t matter when you see how much this guy is stuffing his wallet with.

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I’m, honestly, shocked he is not number-two on this list.

Robert Downey Jr. gets $20 million upfront and nearly 8% of the pool for his role as Iron Man, and that amounted to about $55 million for his work in Avengers: Endgame, which grossed $2.796 billion at the box office. (via Forbes)

Those numbers are justifiable, too. Downey Jr. started it all for Marvel back in 2008 and closed it out with a fucking bang…

The glasses. The facial hair. The status as a film icon. The money. The Rotten Tomatoes average (94% off one movie). It’s good to be RDJ right now.

Another person who benefited big time (literally, ha, you know, Fat Thor) from ‘Avengers: Endgame’ was Chris Hemsworth. He paired the team-up movie with ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ for a year of three-quarters of $100 million on the year. He was also in ‘Men In Black International’ (P-U), but it didn’t make the cut-off for the list. It’s insane what this franchise did for people this year…

[Avengers’ gross] was so big that it secured spots on this year’s top-earner list for Chris Hemsworth, Bradley Cooper and Paul Rudd, in addition to Downey; together, they earned $284 million, with most of that coming from the franchise.
“Celebrities such as Downey and (Scarlett) Johansson currently have extreme leverage to demand enormous compensation packages from studios investing hundreds of millions of dollars in making tent-pole films, such as The Avengers series,” entertainment lawyer David Chidekel of Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae told Forbes. (via Forbes)

‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ brought his average down a bit, but still, bravo Chris, bravo.

NOW FOR #1…

Surprised? No? Okay.

“It has to be audience first. What does the audience want, and what is the best scenario that we can create that will send them home happy?” Johnson told Forbes in 2018.
It seems he makes the audience happy. Johnson has landed a pay formula as close to the famed twenty-twenty deal of yore as any star can get these days. He’ll collect an upfront salary of up to $23.5 million—his highest quote yet—for the forthcoming Jumanji: The Next Level. He also commands up to 15% of the pool from high-grossing franchise movies, including Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which had a worldwide box office of $962.1 million. And he is paid $700,000 per episode for HBO’s Ballers and seven figures in royalties for his line of clothing, shoes and headphones with Under Armour. (via Forbes)

He’s the biggest star in the world. His movies did pretty damn well rating wise too, with an average of 77%. This also doesn’t include ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ and he will also add ‘Jumanji 3′ next year. Everything is looking up for The Rock.

Dwayne Johnson to the rest of Hollywood right now…

He will be back to defend his title next year, no question.

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Now, who do I want to take the top spot next year? There’s only one answer…