Vince Vaughn is the Actor that Offers the Best Value for Your Money

Posted by on July 24th, 2008   Filed under: Box Office, Comedy
Source: Yahoo!

There’s an interesting little article in the latest issue of Forbes that analyzes recent box office numbers and compares them to the paychecks of the various actors involved. The result is a list of the actors and actresses who offer studios the best return on their investment. At the top of the list is Vince Vaughn, who earned an estimated $14.73 for every dollar he was paid, thanks to a relatively low salary and box office hits like The Break-Up and Wedding Crashers. Conversely, Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey and Nicole Kidman were at the bottom of the list because of some flops that they were paid a lot for. Here’s the top 10 actors and actresses with the best bang for their buck:

1. Vince Vaughn — $14.73 (The Breakup, Wedding Crashers, Dodgeball)
2. Tobey Maguire — $13.44 (Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man 2, Seabiscuit)
3. Julia Roberts — $13.19 (Charlie Wilson’s War, Ocean’s Twelve, Closer)
4. Brad Pitt — $12.73 (Ocean’s Thirteen, Babel, Mr. & Mrs. Smith)
5. Naomi Watts — $12.16 (Eastern Promises, King Kong, Stay)
6. Matt Damon — $12.16 (The Bourne Ultimatum, Ocean’s Thirteen, The Good Shepherd)
7. George Clooney — $11.56 (Michael Clayton, Ocean’s Thirteen, Syriana)
8. Jennifer Aniston — $10.48 (The Breakup, Friends With Money, Rumor Has It)
9. Hugh Jackman — $9.90 (The Fountain, The Prestige, Scoop)
10. Ben Stiller — $9.50 (Heartbreak Kid, Night at the Museum, Meet the Fockers)

Any surprises? I didn’t really expect to see Naomi Watts on there. Ocean’s Thirteen is obviously the main reason that Pitt, Damon and Clooney made the list, as they took huge pay cuts to do the whole trilogy. What I’m wondering is, where does Will Smith fit into the equation?



  • Most arbitrary $$$ comparison ever. Their selection criteria and other factors (including back-end Gross points, etc.) make this whole exercise kinda ludicrous.

    More detailed take-down of this ‘research’ here:

    http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/07/hot_button_forb.html

  • They do seem to be randomly picking and choosing which movies they included in their calculations, but I guess the thing that should make us most suspicious is the fact that there are no unknowns or independent films on the list. Surely something like Juno (budget: $7.5 million, worldwide gross: $229 million) offered a MUCH bigger return than The Break-Up.

    Still, it’s an interesting idea for analysis, even if there’s no good way to measure it.

  • People come to the certain movies for a lot of different things. In todays high-concept multiplex world, the “Star System” is far from the only factor (actually, the more I think about that, the more I think, same as it ever was).

    There is still a whole risk element to things, and not enough rational statistics to turn something as fickle as entertainment & pop-culture into something predictably quantifiable.

  • To be honest, it doesn’t interest me that much, but this particular chart is ludicrous enough to make me come out of the woodworks and comment (or pass along more thought-out commentary over at MovieCityNews).

  • Rick

    Wasn’t this already done about 4 or 5 months ago? (Matt Damon was #1 on that occasion. Meh.

  • I’m surprised Tobey Maguire didn’t request an obscene amount of money for Spidey 3. Although maybe he did and it didn’t skew the number at all because of how much frakkin money that movie made.

    I agree with Kurt on one hand: the list is a bit hard to quantify and maybe a ludicrous and ultimately pointless. But I still think it’s kinda interesting and worth mulling over for curiosity sake.