21 Actors Who Made BANK On A Single Film

Imagine getting paid $70M for a role AND getting nominated for an Academy Award. Bullock didn’t have to when she starred as Dr. Ryan Stone in Gravity.

Gravity pulled $723.3M globally, which helped Bullock’s deal of receiving 15% of box-office revenue, making her one of the highest-earning female leads ever. Well-earned for such a demanding role that left her character floating in space.

Pinch him. He must be dreaming. You know, because, like, Inception?

Anywho, DiCaprio teamed up with Director Chris Nolan to star as Dom Cobb, committing dream heists in this trippy 2010 film. According to Forbes, he made even more than $50M due to DVD and TV sales after taking a pay cut initially since the film was considered a box-office “risk.”

Spoiler: The film went on to make $836.8M.

Breaking the trilogy mold, the fourth Indiana Jones needed Ford back in the role, which ended up landing a rather hefty $65M payday for the seasoned actor.

Like a super team in the NBA, Paramount decided to split a hefty portion of film earnings between three people: Ford, producer George Lucas, and director Steven Spielberg. The old-timers still had it, hitting big at the box office with $790.7M. 

You never know what you’re gonna get, but Hanks got an instant classic film with a great payday. Opting for a performance-based pay was a good bet because Hanks pulled in more than $60M after the movie crushed it at the box office with a reported $678M worldwide. Not bad for a $55M-budget movie.

He also made $40M for Saving Private Ryan. *Insert savings account joke here*

The adaption of the popular ’90s Japanese cyberpunk anime Ghost in the Shell did not perform too well domestically, but still raked in $169.8M worldwide. When the box-office smoke cleared, Johansson brought in $17.5M for playing Major Mira Killian, one of her highest paychecks for any role.

It’d be cool, one day, to see a future version with the original Japanese main character Motoko Kusanagi.

Depp has starred in numerous high-grossing films, so it may shock people that one of his most lucrative roles came in the form of the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. To land the biggest movie star at the time, the Tim Burton film landed Depp for $68M (50 million pounds).

I remember as a kid thinking it was odd to have a side character on all the posters, but now, I can think of 68 million reasons why. Plus, the film itself made more than $1B.

Downey Jr. grabbed the torch and ran so the MCU could exist. It’s only right that the finale of Marvel’s Avengers franchise (Part 1) meant a big payday for RDJ. $75M flew into RDJ’s bank account for starring as part of Infinity War’s loaded cast.

Just think, if Thanos snapped his fingers for all the money in the world, RDJ would still have $37.5M from this film alone. Think of all of the shawarma you could still buy!

I’d pay six figures to see Tom Cruise bring his iconic “choppy” run against an invading alien race. That’s exactly what Paramount did in 2005 to bring a retelling of H.G. Wells’ classic War of the Worlds to life. Cruise opted to take 20% of the film’s profit instead of taking too much upfront, and wow, did betting on this film pay off. War of the Worlds abducted a handsome $603.9M from audiences, leaving Cruise with a whopping $100M.

Cruise also made an astounding $75M for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

There’s no doubting that the Ghostbusters franchise name is profitable. With a $154M budget, they needed star power, and there was no bigger comedian in the mid-2010s than McCarthy that fit the role. They made her the highest-paying actor in the film with $14M.

Apparently, she ain’t afraid of no dollars.

Turning Andy Weir’s masterpiece novel into a movie, 20th Century Fox decided Matt Damon was their guy. Damon found $25M in his space pockets and great recognition for his portrayal of botanist Mark Watney.

The Martian wasn’t just received well; it made $630.6M at the box office. I wonder how the US dollars/exchange rate works on Mars?

The People’s Eyebrow has turned into the People’s Profit. I can’t explain why, but the Rock equals money. He pulled in $25M just for his disaster summer flick San Andreas.

He is now projected to make $50M for starring in the upcoming Netflix film Red One. I’m still waiting for his grand return as the Scorpion King, but they need to find the cash to pay this man.

If I had an Actors Fantasy League, following salary cap rules, I’m giving a good share of my money to Denzel.

He’s lights out every time and has a proven track record of stardom. He had a high payday for The Book of Eli back in 2010, and in 2021, he got a great paycheck total of $40M to star in the crime drama Little Things.

He continues to be, year-to-year, one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood.

If you can land Jolie, you pay every dime. Marvel believed the same thing and reportedly paid Jolie an impressive amount to play Thena that helped her earn a total of $35.5M in 2021. Her average fee for past films has been in the $20M range, so if you want Jolie, you better pay up.

Eternals made $402M, which, in the pandemic era of film, isn’t too shabby at all. A $200M budget, though. Ouch. Still, Jolie is always worth the cash in my unprofessional opinion.

Big dollars in disguise. I have to work on my robot voice, but Marky Mark didn’t have to worry about a thing stepping into this role for the fourth installment of live-action Transformers movies. He took home $17M for the 2014 blockbuster flick.

All of this is amazing when you think about it, because Wahlberg wasn’t really the face of the Transformers franchise, but they banked on him to revive it.

“Seventeen million. What’s wrong with that?” (Apologies for my bad Mark Wahlberg impression.)

I gotta rep my love for horror, and Blunt made some serious cash signing on for the sequel of the successful A Quiet Place. According to Variety, Blunt earned around $13M to reprise her role as Evelyn in A Quiet Place Part II.

I didn’t hear too much about this, though. I guess you could say that when it comes to salaries, they were all pretty quiet.

*whispers* “I see nine figures.”

You read that right. ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FOURTEEN-MILLION! Willis was given $14M upfront for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense. Like many others, Willis banked on the movie’s success, receiving a big portion of the film’s gross. The final earnings for Willis scored up a total estimated around $114M, according to George Lucas’s Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success by Alex Ben Block and Lucy Autrey Wilson.

It’s one of the highest-reported paid acting roles for a single movie ever.