“Margot Robbie will be receiving ‘Barbie’ checks for the rest of her life” but Adam Sandler was Hollywood’s top-earning star last year. Here’s how much the Sandman and other top stars banked.
Hollywood history will remember 2023 as the year of Barbenheimer. Since their releases on the same day in July, Barbie and Oppenheimer have dominated the box office, the awards circuit, and countless essays and op-eds. At the Oscars on Sunday, Oppenheimer is expected to sweep most of the major categories, including Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey, Jr.), and Best Director (Christopher Nolan), and Best Picture.
But even with those two blockbusters—Barbie grossed $1.4 billion worldwide and Oppenheimer was just shy of $1 billion—there were still plenty of hours left in the year for other entertainment. And if Netflix’s annual engagement report reveals anything, it’s that many people spent an astronomical amount of time watching Adam Sandler movies.
Since signing his first $250 million four-picture deal with the streamer in 2014, the 57-year-old Sandler has starred in eight movies for Netflix and produced several more through his Happy Madison production company. The majority of his back catalog of comedies are now licensed to the platform as well. In the first six months of 2023 alone, Netflix subscribers spent more than 500 million hours watching Sandler’s movies.
Or, as Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos explained when he re-upped the collaboration in 2020, “There’s no such thing as too much Sandler.”
Accordingly, Netflix has rewarded the prolific funnyman with not only one of the most lucrative contracts in the entertainment industry, but one with enormous creative freedom. Sandler’s three movies in 2023 included Murder Mystery 2 with Jennifer Aniston (who is ranked No. 6 this year), filmed in Paris and Hawaii as is his “paid vacations” custom. He also released You’re So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah starring his wife and daughters, and the animated movie Leo. Combined with his 44 stand-up comedy shows across the country, Sandler earned an estimated $73 million last year (after paying fees to his agent, manager and lawyer). It’s enough to make him the highest-paid actor of 2023 by a comfortable margin.
DON’T MESS WITH THE SANDMAN
For the first half of 2023, Netflix viewers streamed more than 500 million hours of Adam Sandler movies. Here’s what they like to watch:
In total, the 10 highest-paid stars combined to earn $449 million in 2023. They come almost exclusively from movies, rather than television, thanks in part to the writers’ and actors’ strikes that shut down Hollywood for half the year and delayed (or shortened) a number of TV seasons, and partially due to the now decades-long precedent that top movie stars can command up to $20 million up front for a single movie plus a percentage of its profits.
In the long run, starring in a hit movie at the box office remains Hollywood’s golden ticket. Unlike Netflix, which pays actors a premium fee up front and buys out their back-end profit participation over the next two years, a hit theatrical movie can continue to generate money in perpetuity—meaning actors with profit participation have no cap on the amount they can ultimately earn.
For example, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, the stars of Barbie, are ranked No. 2 and No. 4 respectively on this year’s top 10 based solely on their estimated earnings from box office, video on-demand and the movie’s first streaming window. Their total compensation for starring in a cultural phenomenon will be considerably higher.
“I promise, Margot Robbie will be receiving Barbie checks for the rest of her life,” says one agent.
Robbie’s success is an outlier in another way. At 33, she is the youngest person on the highest-paid actors list by a decade, with the average age of the other nine north of 52. Older actors benefit from decades of residuals from past hits—such as Aniston with Friends—and also because Hollywood salaries are established by precedent, meaning the going rate for top stars is expected to match or rise from whatever they made for their last picture.
This grandfathering of salaries often makes it difficult for younger actors to break into the upper echelon. The same is true for actors of color, of whom only one is represented in the top 10 for 2023 (Denzel Washington at No. 10). Admittedly, it was a year in which many of the perennial highest-paid Black actors did not release a major movie. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson focused on his entrepreneurial endeavors such as Teramana tequila and the XFL, while his frequent on-screen collaborator Kevin Hart devoted more time to his stand-up comedy. And Will Smith, once the king of summer blockbusters, was still rehabbing his image in the wake of the 2022 Oscars slap. Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx and Samuel L. Jackson did most of their work on streaming services, where upfront fees are high but potential upside is capped. Still, blockbuster movies fronted by Black, Asian and Hispanic actors remain few and far between.
“The bottom line is, Hollywood is still a white-dominated industry,” says Darnell Hunt, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at UCLA and the author of the Hollywood Diversity Report. “There are a few actors of color who can command those salaries, and they’ve established a track record to command that. But the problem is, how many actors have been given the opportunity to develop that track record?”
Looking at the current release calendar, it’s quite likely that 2024’s ranking of the highest-paid actors will look very different. Most movies take years to develop, so while Robbie, Tom Cruise (No. 3 this year), and Leonardo DiCaprio (No. 7) set off to their next projects, 2024’s theatrical slate will feature Smith in Bad Boys 4, Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F and Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool 3. Several members of the impressive young cast of Dune 2 are also fronting multiple movies in the coming year, including Zendaya, Austin Butler and Anya Taylor-Joy. Plus, blockbuster TV shows like Yellowstone, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Bear will have stars in the earnings mix.
Beyond the hefty salaries, what’s truly been earned by this year’s highest-paid stars is greater power within the industry, particularly the ability to negotiate for even more favorable deal terms on their next project. In an industry where pay can rise or fall based on each performance. this list represents a snapshot of who has the most leverage in Hollywood in 2024.
1. Adam Sandler • $73 million ($97 million gross)
In the first three months after Murder Mystery 2 was released on Netflix, the streamer reported that it was watched for a total of 173 million hours across the world and ranked in the Top 10 in 90 different countries. The sequel was part of a very busy year for the Sandman, who did more than 40 stand-up comedy tour dates in 2023 to go with three Netflix film projects.
2. Margot Robbie • $59 million ($78 million gross)
The cultural phenomenon that was Barbie took off last July and never really slowed down, grossing $1.45 billion at the worldwide box office and untold millions more in licensing and partnerships. As both the producer of the movie and its star, Robbie cashed in on roughly 12.5% of all back-end profits, which Forbes estimates will more than $60 million. Her now red-hot production company LuckyChap was also behind last year’s much-buzzed-about satire Saltburn, and in February Robbie signed a new exclusive first-look deal with Warner Bros., the studio behind Barbie.
3. Tom Cruise • $45 million ($53 million gross)
The 61-year-old action star not only defies conventional wisdom when it comes to his outrageous stunt work, but also the evolving norms around how an actor gets paid. Cruise is one of the last, if not the very last, movie star who can still command the vaunted “first-dollar gross” deal, meaning he gets paid a percentage of box office and other revenues beginning the day it’s released, before the studio even recoups its money. In 2023, he cashed in on the latest Mission: Impossible movie and continued receiving streaming and on-demand profits for 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick. And studios still clearly want to be in the Tom Cruise business—in January, he signed a new development deal with Warner Bros.
4. Ryan Gosling • $43 million ($50 million gross)
He may be just Ken, but the supporting role in the year’s biggest movie was good enough for an Oscar nomination and one of the biggest paydays of the 43-year-old Gosling’s career. As an added bonus, his power ballad from the movie, “I’m Just Ken,” has been streamed over 100 million times on Spotify.
4. Matt Damon • $43 million ($50 million gross)
Many around Hollywood are rooting for Affleck and Damon’s upstart Artists Equity studio to succeed, given its promise to help crew members and other below-the-line talent share in movies’ profits. Their first project Air—which starred Damon and was directed by Affleck—sold to Amazon before it ever went into production for an estimated $130 million. That figure was well above the movie’s budget, ensuring there would be plenty of money to go around. In addition, the 53-year-old actor took a mere $4 million salary for his supporting role in Oppenheimer, far below his normal rate, in exchange for a small slice of the movie’s substantial profits.
6. Jennifer Aniston • $42 million ($56 million gross)
Friends residuals ensure that the artist forever known as Rachel Green doesn’t have to “go get one of those job things” ever again—yet the 54-year-old actress continues to star in both TV and movies. Aniston reportedly makes as much as $2 million for acting and executive producing each episode of The Morning Show on AppleTV+, and appeared alongside Adam Sandler in Murder Mystery 2 for Netflix, all while promoting brands like Uber Eats, Pvolve Fitness, Vital Proteins, and her own haircare line, LolaVie.
7. Leonardo DiCaprio • $41 million ($48 million gross)
The 49-year-old Oscar winner may have been snubbed by the Academy for his performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, but he’s doing just fine on the balance sheet. His starring role in the Martin Scorsese epic included a hefty salary as well as a buy-out of his theatrical profit participation once the movie hits AppleTV+.
7. Jason Statham • $41 million ($48 million gross)
Statham has been throwing punches, kicks and quips at every man, megalodon or Rock in his path for the last 20 years, and the 56-year-old actor’s earning power has never been higher. In 2023, he fronted three major big-budget franchises— Fast X, Meg 2: The Trench and Expend4bles—plus the Guy Ritchie spy caper Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. And he’s currently the star of the highest-grossing movie of 2024, The Beekeeper.
9. Ben Affleck • $38 million ($45 million)
When he’s not busy hawking donuts and plugging his new boy band in commercials for Dunkin’, Affleck serves as CEO of the studio startup Artists Equity (to Matt Damon’s chief creative officer). The 51-year-old multihyphenate directed and co-starred in Air, which grossed $90 million at the box office before moving to Amazon Prime Video.
10. Denzel Washington • $24 million ($28 million gross)
Tom Cruise isn’t the only sixtysomething movie star who can open a movie. The third installment of the Equalizer franchise was released in 2023, with all three entries crossing $190 million at the box office for one reason: Denzel Washington. In addition, the two-time Oscar winner’s robust back catalog going back nearly 40 years also produces a steady stream of cash each year for the 69-year-old actor.
METHODOLOGY
Estimations were calculated through interviews with agents, lawyers, managers, executives and industry experts, as well as data sources such as IMDBPro and Polestar. The figures represent pretax earnings for the calendar year 2023, minus fees for representation – 10% to agents, 10% to managers and 5% to lawyers, per industry standard, although some actors do not have all three.
Actors were credited for compensation on projects in the year they were released, despite the fact that often up front fees are paid when a movie is filmed, which could be years in the past, and back end participation is often paid several years into the future.
Additionally, the ranking only includes earnings related to entertainment—acting, producing, directing, or other forms of performance (such as stand-up comedy). Entrepreneurial endeavors not related to entertainment, such as beauty or spirits brands, were not counted.
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.