We all know that Hollywood's biggest names do quite well for themselves, but until you see a list like the one Vanity Fair unveiled today of the 40 biggest moneymakers of 2010, you really can't appreciate just how much of a haul the top of the top bring in. For instance, Johnny Depp has been in some huge movies, but the idea that the "Alice in Wonderland" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" star brought in $100 million in a 12-month span? Mind-boggling. And amazingly, he's not even 2010's biggest earner.
The Vanity Fair list is put together by compiling the estimated money that actors, writers, producers and directors (no agents or managers) collect from their film work, leaving out TV deals, endorsements, and other non-movie dough. And while the people you'd assume would be on the list are indeed on here, the number-crunching offers great insight into how people earn ridiculous riches: through lucrative back-end deals, which are a way for studios to pay talent a little less in salary in exchange for a percentage of the money that star's film earns, minimizing some of their financial risk.
Such a deal helped put Depp No. 2 on the Vanity Fair list. True, he landed a salary of $35 million for his turn in the forthcoming "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequel, $20 million from starring in "The Tourist," and $5 million in revenue from previous films. But the largest chunk of Depp's change appeared in the form of a back-end deal: He earned $40 million that way off "Alice in Wonderland." It's a good bet he won't see anything close to that amount in back-end from "The Tourist," which struggled domestically despite being a hit overseas.
But the king of the Vanity Fair list, writer-director James Cameron, garnered $257 million, snagging $248 million alone from back-end deals based on the theatrical, DVD, and pay-TV performance of "Avatar." By comparison, the $5 million he got from "Avatar" licenses and the $4 million he earned from revenue generated by his older films are mere drops in the bucket. (And that's not even including the $50 million he got in 2009 from back-end deals on "Avatar.") "Avatar" was a gigantic hit, sure, but it was so gigantic that Cameron made more than two-and-a-half times more money than Depp last year.
As for the rest of the Top 10, there aren't any major surprises. We learned that Steven Spielberg (No. 3) earned $50 million of his $80 million in 2010 from what Vanity Fair describes as "Universal-theme-park royalties and consulting fees." (You wonder why studios are so keen to make movies they can turn into amusement park rides? That's why.) Adam Sandler (No. 7) gets between $20 to $25 million for each film he stars in and produces. And Taylor Lautner (No. 9) makes $12.5 million per "Twilight" film (just like his co-stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart), although none of them apparently get any back-end profits from the franchise. They may want to talk to their management after they see this Vanity Fair piece.
No comments:
Post a Comment