Ouch. Of the many lists that are compiled in Hollywood each year, there’s one no star wants to be on, Forbes’ list of the most overpaid actors in the business. To quote Forbes “We used data gathered for our annual Celebrity 100 List to calculate each star’s estimated earnings on each film (including up-front pay and any earnings from the movie’s box-office receipts and first year sales of DVDs). We then looked at each movie’s estimated budget (not including marketing costs, which are susceptible to accounting chicanery) and box-office and DVD earnings to figure out an operating income for each film.
We added up each star’s compensation on his or her last three films and the operating income on those films, and divided total operating income by the star’s total compensation to come up with a return-on-investment number. The final number represents an average of how much a studio earns for every dollar paid.”
Drew Barrymore topped this years list, with studios only recouping 0.40c of every dollar spent on her. So if her fee for appearing in a movie is $10 million, the entire movie is only making $4 million in return. To put that into perspective, Nicole Kidman, who’s at number 10, makes a studio an average of $6.50, so while she may command $20 million, her movies have been making on average $130 million.
There are a number of surprising names in the top 10, with Hollywood royalty Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington surprising inclusions. While neither Cruise, nor Washington have had any real flops lately, they command such huge fees, that a movie has to be a box office smash to make them financially viable. Will Ferrell, who has been at the top of the list for the last few years, has moved to third while Reese Witherspoon completes the top 5.
