You might not want to read this if you’re an actor looking for employment. The 2015 Forbes list of the world’s highest paid actors has been revealed, and the earnings of those in the top ten are mind boggling.
Robert Downey Jr. leads the pack for the third year running with a rather impressive $800 million in earnings, primarily for entertaining millions of movie-goers as Marvel’s Iron Man, one would assume. He is followed up by Jackie Chan, who reaps in an impressive $50 million, mostly from his work starring in East-West co-productions such as Dragon Blade.
Vin Diesel comes in third with $47 million thanks to the massively successful release of Furious 7, which reaped over $1.52 billion at the worldwide box office and became the fifth highest grossing film of all time. When you look at it like that, Diesel’s earnings seem almost paltry in comparison.
The fourth spot on the chart goes to Bradley Cooper (41.5 million), who was Oscar nominated for his role in American Sniper, and then we come to a somewhat surprising entry. Adam Sandler takes fifth place, with earnings of $41 million. Sandler’s earnings have come mostly from the home movie market, where he is supremely popular, and his four movie deal with Netflix. Despite all his recent releases being commercial flops, it seems as though studios are still prepared to pay him very handsomely for rather questionable talent.
Tom Cruise comes in at number six, ($40 million) thanks to also serving as a producer on the Mission: Impossible movies, and given that Rogue Nation is a relatively recent release, we could see him take home even more cash next year.
For the first time, Forbes have included actors who work solely in international movies. As a result, two Bollywood actors, Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan tie in seventh place with $33.5 million apiece, and Akshay Kumar comes in ninth with $32.5 million. Mark Whalberg rounds out the list with $32 million.
What do you make of the list? There seems to be a mix of expected entrants and surprises, but are these stars earnings too obscene? It will certainly be interesting to compare this list to the highest paid actresses list when it is released later this year.
