A lot is made about how much money actors earn per movie. For instance, when Julia Roberts became the first female to make $20 million a picture, that was big news. When Reese Witherspoon outdid her, that was news as well. Vanity Fair recently published its list of highest-paid people in Hollywood and as it turns out, it isn’t the actors who are on top of the heap.
It’s Michael Bay. Who raked in $125 million in 2009. That’s a whopping $40 million more than Steven Spielberg, who came in at number two with $85 million. James Cameron ranked fourth with $50 million. Apparently, all it takes to top the list in Hollywood is to produce and direct one really big movie that has lots of special effects and absolutely no depth whatsoever. But how Michael Bay beat out James Cameron is beyond me. Cameron’s “Avatar” is the highest-grossing movie ever made (upwards of $2 billion and counting), while Bay’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” brought in around $835 million, which is an obscenely huge number, but not even half of “Avatar’s” earnings. I guess since “Avatar” is still rolling on well into 2010, Cameron will come out on top of next year’s list.
Sadly, there is not a woman in sight at the top of the list. The highest-paid woman (or, girl) in Hollywood is “Harry Potter”-heroine Emma Watson, who ranked 14th on the list of 40, bringing in $30 million in 2009. The 19-year-old starlet and Ivy-League-undergrad beat out actresses Reese Witherspoon, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston who all came in toward the bottom of the list. But, even at the ”bottom” these actresses still brought in around $20 million each.
Other surprises on the list: Daniel Radcliffe ($41 million, #6), Rupert Grint ($30 million, #15) and Kristen Stewart ($16 million, #37). Turns out it pays to be young and star in a really popular franchise.
