This year has already been weird for a number of reasons. So you probably won’t even bat an eye when when we tell you that the highest paid actor of 2020 doesn’t even have a movie coming out this year. That actor is Dwayne Johnson, and thanks to a hefty paycheck from Netflix for the upcoming original movie Red Notice, not to mention his ongoing Under Armour clothing line, Project Rock, Johnson will rake in a whopping $87.5 million this year.
Forbes put together their annual list of the highest paid actors of 2020. We’re still not sure why they determine these rankings in the middle of the year, or why the time period used to determine these calculations spans from June 1, 2019 through June 1, 2020, but that’s how they’ve been doing it for a long time. The data used to determine these numbers comes from Nielsen, ComScore, Box Office Mojo and IMDB, as well as information from industry insiders. The amount is before taxes, and it doesn’t include deductions of fees for the actors’ representatives.
Dwayne Johnson’s total for this year is down nearly $2 million compared to last year’s earnings, which had him topping the list of the highest paid actors of 2019, so Johnson has clearly been slacking off a bit (I’m totally kidding, please don’t hurt me, Mr. The Rock). But it’s still pretty impressive when you consider the fact that we won’t see a Dwayne Johnson movie in theaters this year. Disney’s Jungle Cruise would have hit theaters this summer, and it might have added some box office bank to his earnings, but now it’s coming out next year.
As for the rest of the list of the highest paid actors of 2020, here’s the top 10 with their earnings:
- Dwayne Johnson – $87.5 million
- Ryan Reynolds -$71.5 million
- Mark Wahlberg – $58 million
- Ben Affleck -$55 million
- Vin Diesel -$54 million
- Akshay Kumar -$48.5 million
- Lin-Manuel Miranda – $45.5 million
- Will Smith – $44.5 million
- Adam Sandler – $41 million
- Jackie Chan – $40 million
If you have no idea who Akshay Kumar is, he’s a successful Bollywood actor. How is he able to match the earnings of these global superstars if he’s not well known in the US? Apparently most of his money comes from endorsement deals, which have him pushing the likes of multivitamins, hair products, biscuits and toilet cleaners. Whatever pays the bills! You can find out the biggest contributors to each of these stars’ earnings over at Forbes.
Interestingly enough, Netflix is responsible for paying out $140.5 million to six of the actors on this list. That’s a quarter of the total $545.5 million earned by all these actors combined, and it’s just a fraction of the $17 billion total that Netflix is looking to spend on content this year. But next year, it could be Apple TV+ that fills up their banks, since they seem to be cutting first look deals left and right with some of Hollywood’s biggest names. They’ll be paying $30 million alone to Ryan Reynolds for starring in the upcoming musical take on A Christmas Carol.
Next month, Forbes will release their list of the highest paid actresses of 2020. Last year it was Scarlett Johansson, but will she be able to repeat like Dwayne Johnson did? Stay tuned.
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