The World's Highest-Paid Actors 2016: The Rock Leads

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson elbowed out reigning top-ranked Robert Downey Jr. to become the world’s highest-paid actor–and scored his biggest ever annual paycheck in the process.

Johnson’s $64.5 million payday more than doubled his 2015 earnings, making him this year’s biggest dollar gainer. The erstwhile wrestler’s millions and millions came from upfront fees for movies including Central Intelligence and Fast 8, as well as the forthcoming Baywatch in which he’s set to play Mitch Buchannon. A staple of the Fast and Furious franchise, the stellar box office performance of his recent films (including 2015’s hit San Andreas) have seen his quotes skyrocket.

“I can kick ass better than anyone on the planet,” Johnson told FORBES in 2012. “And I have a decent smile.”

He bested second-ranked Jackie Chan ($61 million), who mints money with movies in China, and Matt Damon, who tallied $55 million largely off the success of The Martian to boost his earnings 120% year over year.

“I think the world belongs to us,” said Chan, discussing his continent-spanning ambitions with FORBES. “America belongs to me. China belongs to you.”

Rounding out the top five is perennial list member Tom Cruise (No. 4, $53 million) and Johnny Depp (No. 5, $48 million), the latter of whom received a restraining order against him in May, after his wife, Amber Heard, alleged he physically and verbally abused her. The couple reached a $7 million divorce settlement in August; Heard donated the cash to charity. The damning accusations did not impact his earnings during our scoring period–he pocketed an estimated eight figures upfront apiece for the latest Pirates of the Caribbean installment and box office bomb Alice Through the Looking Glass–but his paychecks look set to plummet next year.

The only returnee to the ranking: Harrison Ford, who scrapes on with an outsized payday for his return as Han Solo in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He most recently made the list in 2009.

A quarter of this global list hail from outside the U.S. Aside from Chan, four Bollywood stars returned to the ranking for the second year in a row. Shah Rukh Khan ($33 million), the top-ranked Indian actor, banked as much as Downey Jr. , while Akshay Kumar ($31.5 million) earned the same as Brad Pitt in our scoring period.

Almost universally, a gender pay gap persists. The world’s highest-paid actress, Jennifer Lawrence ($46 million), earned 71% of Johnson’s $64.5 million. That ratio is a little lower than the 79 cents a white woman is typically paid to every dollar a white man makes, but better than the pay disparity Hispanic or Black women typically face.

There are simply more big budget roles for men that pay the high fees and cut of profits needed to score multimillion take-homes. In fact, there are more roles for men, period: Male characters comprise an overwhelming 71% of all speaking roles in movies, according to a recent study. To wit, eighteen actors banked over $20 million in our scoring period, compared with just four actresses.

Combined, the world’s 20 highest-paid actors earned a whopping $703.5 million between June 1, 2015 and June 1, 2016, before management fees and taxes. That’s more than three times the $205 million tallied by the top 10 highest-paid actresses in the same time frame.

Men in movies can also have longer careers than the top-earning women: 95% of the highest-paid actors are over 40, compared with half of the actresses. The same study found that men fill nearly three quarters of all roles for characters over 40. In our rankings, all of the highest-paid actresses are under 50, while 45% of the actors are 50-plus. In fact, two of the actors on the list, Ford and Amitabh Bachchan, are even in their seventies.

Just missing the cut this year is 64-year-old Liam Neeson, whose earnings dropped below the $15 million barrier to entry. Seth Rogen, Chris Hemsworth and Channing Tatum were among the drop-offs, largely due to quieter years or movies that fell outside our scoring period.

While last year’s ranking evaluated 34 men, this year’s list scaled back to the top 20 to hone in on acting’s earning elite. Figures are based on data from Nielsen, BoxOffice Mojo and IMDB, as well as interviews with agents, managers and lawyers.

Full List of Top 20 Highest Paid Actors this Year:
1. Dwayne Johnson - $64.5million
2. Jackie Chan - $61million
3. Matt Damon - $55million
4. Tom Cruise - $51million
5. Johnny Depp - $48million
6. Ben Affleck - $43million
7. Vin Diesel -$ 35million
8. Shah Rukh Khan - $33million
8. Robert Downey Jr. - $33million
10. Akshay Kumar - $31.5million
10. Brad Pitt - $31.5million
12. Adam Sandler - $30million
12. Mark Wahlberg - $30million
14. Salman Khan - $28.5million
15. Leonardo Dicaprio - $27million
16. Chris Pratt - $26million
17. Will Smith - $20.5million
18. Amitabh Bachchan - $20million
19. Matthew McConaughey - $18million
20. Harrison Ford - $15million

Drop Offs:
Channing Tatum, Bradley Cooper, Jonah Hill, Liam Neeson, Chris Hemsworth, and Seth Rogen all failed to clear this year's $15million earnings cut off.

The Rock rips 'Fast and Furious' co-stars

https://www.facebook.com/DwayneJohnson/videos/10154625921669384/

When they butted their chests in "Fast Five," movie hardmen Vin Diesel and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson -- or rather their onscreen characters -- almost ended up taking out half of Rio.

So it could be time for Hollywood to batten down the hatches, because the film industry's most macho musclemen appear to have beef in real life.

It all started when Johnson, 44, posted an emotional rant Monday on his Facebook and Instagram accounts, referring to some of his male co-stars on the shoot of "Fast and Furious 8" as "candy asses."

"There's no other franchise that gets my blood boiling more than this one. An incredible hard working crew," he said, praising the professionalism of his female co-stars in the action franchise.

"My male co-stars however are a different story. Some conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don't," the former wrestler went on.

"The ones that don't are too chicken s*** to do anything about it anyway. Candy asses. When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I'm not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit boiling -- you're right."

Johnson didn't name names or say what was riling him, while Diesel, Jason Statham, Scott Eastwood and rapper Ludacris have refrained from responding.

But the gossip website TMZ -- citing unnamed "production sources" -- reported that Diesel was the target of the tirade, and that the pair had a secret meeting on set in Atlanta Tuesday to "hash things out."

"We're told The Rock has butted heads with Vin during the production, in part because V.D. is a producer and has made decisions that didn't sit well with the former wrestling champ," TMZ said.

Meanwhile an insider was quoted by E! News as saying that filming "wasn't easy for anyone" and had been especially difficult for Johnson, who is also a producer on the movie, which finishes filming in a week.