FILMandMOVIEmaking.com

To be fair, this isn’t about the actors that work in restaurants part time while trying to secure a bit part in a ‘B’ movie. This concerns the millions of dollars that some actors earn and trying not to compare that to several small country’s GDP.

Vanity Fair have just published their figures for last year’s earnings, but unless I don’t understand them, they might be flawed, somewhat. For example:

13 Denzel Washington
(WME)
Estimated 2009 earnings: $31 million
$15 million: The Book of Eli (fee for starring)
$15 million: Unstoppable (fee for starring in upcoming runaway-train thriller)
$1 million: Royalties from older films, other revenue

That doesn’t appear to include his payment for Invictus. He may have worked for nothing, but I doubt it on this occasion. on the other hand, others who worked on the movie (Client Eastwood and Matt Damon) have Invictus earnings included. This may be the only slip up, it’s the only one I’m aware of.

Vanity Fair say their list is for creative people in Hollywood, but I don’t see any screenplay writers on the list. Surely they’re the most important people because without them there wouldn’t be a movie, or am I slightly biased?

The article amuses further when it states: ‘We have not counted royalties and other revenues when the figure is under $500,000’ Such a shame they forget about amounts of money that most (if not all, but the top 1% earners) of the rest of us would be happy with.

Here’s the list:

Hollywood’s top male earners in 2009:

1. Michael Bay, producer-director ($125 million)
2. Steven Spielberg, producer-director ($85 million)
3. Roland Emmerich, producer-director ($70 million)
4. James Cameron, producer-director ($50 million)
5. Todd Phillips, director ($44 million)
6. Daniel Radcliffe, actor ($41 million)
7. Ben Stiller, actor ($40 million)
8. Tom Hanks, actor ($36 million)
9. J. J. Abrams, producer-director ($36 million)
10. Jerry Bruckheimer, producer ($35.5 million)

Hollywood’s top female earners in 2009:

1. Emma Watson, actress ($30million)
2. Cameron Diaz, actress ($27million)
3. Sarah Jessica Parker, actress ($24million)
4. Katherine Heigl, actress ($24million)
5. Reese Witherspoon, actress ($21million)
6. Angelina Jolie, actress ($21million)
7. Jennifer Aniston, actress ($20million)
8. Sandra Bullock, actress ($20million)
9. Kristen Stewart , actress ($16million)

The full article can be found here:

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/2010/03/top-hollywood-earners-201003?currentPage=1