Variety revealed a list of the paydays for Hollywood's biggest actors in some recently released and upcoming films. Let's break down the numbers.
The biggest caveat to mention upfront is that no, Tom Cruise was not paid $100 million for acting in the sequel to "Top Gun." He signed a deal with Paramount that gets him points on the backend, which in layman's terms means he gets a portion of ticket sales and all home entertainment rentals and streaming revenue. He also has a similar deal for the next two "Mission Impossible" sequels, so the better they do, the more he gets paid. This is a unique situation and only franchises like Star Wars are somewhat comparable; studios don't usually make these types of deals with talent.
Actors getting paid upwards of $20 million to star in films dates back to Jim Carrey in "The Cable Guy," and that figure pretty much set the precedent (and remains immune to inflation, like a Costco hot dog or Arizona ice tea). Though, the future of movies and TV is set to rapidly change, with streaming services potentially about to end their infinite spending on individual projects. Netflix is under fire from shareholders for losing subscribers, and they might need to pinch pennies going forward.
One thing we noticed that Variety didn't note is that women are getting the short end of the stick. You have to scroll all the way down to Margot Robbie in "Barbie" to get to the first woman, and she makes the same as her co-star Ryan Gosling aka Ken. Are women being underpaid, or are there just not enough big-budget movies with starring roles for women?