FILMandMOVIEmaking.com

You’ve no doubt been so concerned with your low budget independent movie and the amount that you’ve allocated for your star roles. Is it enough? Will it bring the people to the cinema? What if I had another ten million for a star name, will that make me more than the extra ten million back in profit?

Well, Forbes Magazine has just published their annual Ultimate Star Payback League and the results are just in:

Earnings are per dollar (paid to the star and return gained) and are based on the star’s last three movies before 1st January 2008.

Those at the top of this year’s list include:
1. Vince Vaughn - $14.73
2. Tobey Maguire - $13.44
3. Julia Roberts - $13.19
4. Brad Pitt - $12.73
5. Naomi Watts - $12.16
6. Matt Damon - $12.16
7. George Clooney - $11.56
8. Jennifer Aniston - $10.48
9. Hugh Jackman - $9.90
10. Ben Stiller - $9.50

Those at the other end of the list:
1. Nicole Kidman - $1.01
2. Jennifer Garner - $3.62
3. Tom Cruise - $3.99
4. Cameron Diaz - $4.03
5. Jennifer Lopez - $4.10
6. Jim Carrey - $4.11
7. Nicolas Cage - $4.16
8. Drew Barrymore - $4.38
9. Will Ferrell - $4.67
10. Cate Blanchett - $4.97

This just goes to show you that figures can be played around with and any result you want can be found. A lower paid actor staring in a big movie success will appear as a much higher rate of return than those top earning actors who have to sell millions of theatre seats to get their payback.

We’d all be sure to want to have Nicole Kidman as the star in our movie, even if it only brings us another one cent over each dollar we pay out. In fact, if truth be told, we’d accept any of the actors mentioned in the entire list; just think of the publicity.

You’ll need to find a new actor about to break in to the big time and find that great ingredient that follows all skills, preparation, planning, production and marketing: luck.

Stars do sometimes appear in film flops. The trick is to make sure it isn’t your movie.