Robert Downey Jr. Is The World’s Top-Paid Star, Three Years In A Row — Why Does He Command Big Bucks?
Robert Downey Jr. has been the highest paid actor for three years in a row. The actor earned $80 million, which is far above his nearest contemporary, Jackie Chan, who managed to earn $50 million. Fast and Furious movie franchise star Vin Diesel came in third by pocketing $47 million.
Robert Downey Jr. has been named the world’s highest paid actor, again, by Forbes. Interestingly, his earnings were propelled by the Chinese box office that went crazy for the latest Avengers movie. The Avengers: Age of Ultron made an astronomical amount of money in in the People’s Republic of China.
With a whopping $240 million garnered in China alone, the collections helped Robert Downey Jr. cement his top position in World’s Highest Paid Actors list for the third year in a row. The list is an interesting indicator of how the movie stars are having their fortunes influenced by international markets, and films that might not do well in their home-country might still haul in a decent amount of profit internationally, sometimes even from unexpected regions, explained Jackie Chan.
“I always look at the map … I think the world belongs to us. America belongs to me. China belongs to you.”
Robert Downey Jr., 50, earned an estimated $80 million between June, 2014, and June, 2015, but majority of that money came from a single movie: Avengers: Age of Ultron, which grossed more than $1.3 billion worldwide. The collections make the movie one of the highest grossing Hollywood films ever. Interestingly, though Furious 7 made more money worldwide than the Avengers, Vin Diesel didn’t make as much money as Robert Downey Jr.
This year’s list can be considered path-breaking because for the first time, the ranking included international actors. This ensured well-paid actors like Bollywood’s Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan, who each made $33.5 million, make it to the 7th position. Though he didn’t make the top 10, Seth Rogen impressively made $17 million from his controversial movie The Interview, reported WDSU.
It isn’t a surprise that six of the top 10 well-paid movie stars originate from the U.S., reported MSN. Though Hollywood can be considered the most lucrative movie producing industries, one has to consider the fact that the dollar wins in conversion rates and despite making multi-million rupees, the earnings of Indian stars pales in comparison to the paycheck cashed by their Hollywood counterparts.
It’s quite evident that Robert Downey Jr. may be an excellent actor, but his earnings are great owing to his movies doing exceptionally well internationally. However, it raises the question: Why don’t his co-actors make as much dough starring in the same movie as Iron Man?
The Top-10 list of well-paid actors is as below.
- Robert Downey Jr: $80 million
- Jackie Chan: $50 million
- Vin Diesel: $47 million
- Bradley Cooper: $41.5 million
- Adam Sandler: $41 million
- Tom Cruise: $40 million
- Amitabh Bachchan: $33.5 million
- Salman Khan: $33.5 million
- Akshay Kumar: $32.5 million
- Mark Wahlberg: $32 million
[Image Credit: Jonathan Leibson / Getty Images]
