The 10 highest-paid stars combined to earn $449 million in 2023. They come almost exclusively from film, thanks in part to the writers’ and actors’ strikes that shut down Hollywood for half the year and delayed (or shortened) several TV seasons, and in part because of the decades-old precedent that top movie stars can get paid up to $20 million up front for a single film plus a percentage of their earnings.
Ultimately, starring in a blockbuster film remains Hollywood’s golden ticket. Unlike Netflix, which pays actors a premium upfront fee and buys their final profit share for the next two years, a blockbuster film can continue to generate money in perpetuity, meaning that actors with a profit share have no limit on the amount they receive and can ultimately earn.
For example, Robbie’s success is atypical in another sense. At 33, he is the youngest person on the list of highest paid actors (he is a decade younger than the next). Older actors benefit from decades of residuals from past successes and also because Hollywood salaries are set by precedent, meaning that the current salary of top stars is expected to match or increase from what they earned for their last film.
This protection of wages often makes it difficult for younger actors to enter the upper echelon. The same is true for black actors. “The bottom line is that Hollywood is still a white-dominated industry,” says Darnell Hunt, executive vice chancellor and provost at UCLA and author of the Hollywood Diversity Report. “There are some actors of colour who can demand those salaries, and they have established a track record for doing so. But the problem is: how many actors have been given the opportunity to develop that track record?”
Beyond high salaries, what this year’s highest paid stars have really gained is greater power within the industry, in particular the ability to negotiate even more favourable terms for their next project. In an industry where the salary can rise or fall with every performance. This list represents a snapshot of who will have the most influence in Hollywood in 2024.
1. Adam Sandler
73 million ($97 million gross)
In the first three months after Murder Mystery 2’s release on Netflix, the streamer reported 173 million total hours watched worldwide and ranked in the Top 10 in 90 different countries. The sequel was part of a busy year for Sandman, who performed more than 40 live comedy tour dates in 2023 along with three Netflix film projects.
2. Margot Robbie
$59 million ($78 million gross)
The cultural phenomenon that was Barbie took off last July and never slowed down, grossing $1.45 billion at the global box office. Robbie collected approximately 12.5 per cent of all final earnings, which Forbes estimates at more than $60 million. His now hot production company LuckyChap was also behind last year’s much-talked-about satire Saltburn, and in February Robbie signed a new exclusive first-look deal with Warner Bros, the studio behind Barbie.
3. Tom Cruise
45 million ($53 million gross)
Cruise is one of the last, if not the last, movie star who can still get the much-vaunted “first dollar gross” deal, meaning he gets paid a percentage of box office and other revenues from the day of release, before the studio even gets its money back. In 2023, it cashed in on the latest Mission: Impossible film and continued to receive streaming and on-demand revenue for 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick. And the studios clearly still want to be in Tom Cruise’s business: in January, he signed a new development deal with Warner Bros.
4. Ryan Gosling (tie)
43 million ($50 million gross)
It may just be Ken, but the supporting role in the year’s biggest film was good enough for an Oscar nomination and one of the biggest paydays of the 43-year-old Gosling’s career. As an added bonus, his power ballad from the film, “I’m Just Ken,” has been played more than 100 million times on Spotify.
4. Matt Damon (tie)
43 millones de dólares (50 millones de dólares brutos)
Su primer proyecto Air, protagonizado por Damon y dirigido por Affleck, se vendió a Amazon antes de que entrara en producción por un valor estimado de 130 millones de dólares. Esa cifra estaba muy por encima del presupuesto de la película. Además, el actor de 53 años recibió un salario de apenas 4 millones de dólares por su papel secundario en Oppenheimer, muy por debajo de su salario normal, a cambio de una pequeña porción de las sustanciales ganancias de la película.
6. Jennifer Aniston
42 millones de dólares (56 millones de dólares brutos)
Los residuos de Friends aseguran que la artista siempre conocida como Rachel Green no tenga que “ir a buscar uno de esos trabajos” nunca más; sin embargo, la actriz de 54 años continúa protagonizando películas y televisión. Aniston gana hasta 2 millones de dólares por actuar y ser productora ejecutiva de cada episodio de The Morning Show en AppleTV+, y apareció junto a Adam Sandler en Murder Mystery 2 para Netflix.
7. Leonardo DiCaprio (empate)
41 millones de dólares (48 millones de dólares brutos)
Puede que el ganador del Oscar, de 49 años, haya sido desairado por la Academia por su actuación en Killers of the Flower Moon, pero en el balance le está yendo bien. Su papel protagónico en la epopeya de Martin Scorsese incluyó un salario considerable, así como la compra de su participación en las ganancias teatrales una vez que la película llegue a AppleTV+.
7. Jason Statham (empate)
41 millones de dólares (48 millones de dólares brutos)
En 2023, encabezó tres franquicias importantes de gran presupuesto: Fast X, Meg 2: The Trench y Expend4bles, además de la aventura de espías de Guy Ritchie Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. Y actualmente es la estrella de la película más taquillera de 2024, The Beekeeper.
9. Ben Affleck
38 millones de dólares (45 millones de dólares brutos)
Affleck se desempeña como director ejecutivo de la startup de estudio Artists Equity (del director creativo de Matt Damon). El polifacético de 51 años dirigió y coprotagonizó Air, que recaudó 90 millones de dólares en taquilla antes de pasar a Amazon Prime Video.
10. Denzel Washington
24 millones de dólares (28 millones de dólares brutos)
La tercera entrega de la franquicia Equalizer se estrenó en 2023, y las tres entradas superaron los 190 millones de dólares en taquilla por una razón: Denzel Washington. Además, el sólido catálogo del dos veces ganador del Oscar, que se remonta a casi 40 años, también produce un flujo constante de efectivo cada año para el actor de 69 años.
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