W Power 2024

Hollywood's Most Overpaid Actors

These stars get paid millions to make box-office bombs

Published: Jan 13, 2012 06:05:42 AM IST
Updated: Feb 20, 2014 05:55:32 PM IST

Hollywood's Most Overpaid Actors
Did you plop down $13.50 to see Drew Barrymore’s film Everybody’s Fine a couple of years ago? Few did. The movie grossed $16 million on a budget of $21 million. A string of flops has made her the most overpaid actor in show business, returning only 40 cents for every $1 she was paid. Eddie Murphy — he of Oscars-host letdown — is the second most overpaid actor on our list. True, he earned back $2.70 for every dollar invested in his recent career. That’s not so bad taken on its own. But compared with Shia LaBeouf’s return of $81 for every $1 paid, it’s more dreck than Shrek.

 We used information gathered for the Forbes Celebrity 100 list to calculate actors’ compensations on their last three (non-animated) films and divided by the total operating income to see which stars aren’t earning their pay.

(This story appears in the 20 January, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)

Post Your Comment
Required
Required, will not be published
All comments are moderated
  • Varundeep

    Strange to see Tom Cruise on the list......................

    on Feb 1, 2013