Face Value
In most parts of the world, it's considered rude to ask people how much money they make. In Hollywood, you might actually offend someone if you don't already know. This is a town where stars are regarded as commodities and their salaries quietly obsessed over like stock prices (Tom Cruise and Will Smith: Buy! Buy! Harrison Ford and J. Lo: Sell! Sell!). After decades of seemingly unlimited star paydays, studios are fretting over declining audiences and rising production costs, and taking a hard new look at those eye-popping price tags — so we thought it would be a good time to do the same. Pinning down exact salary figures is trickier than ever these days, given the back-end points, producing fees, and DVD proceeds that increasingly pump up an actor's compensation. (In most cases, the numbers listed here represent the star's basic salary for a major studio film.) But we've canvassed the industry, spoken with agents, managers, execs, and producers, pored over all the available reporting, and come up with our own estimates to determine who is making how much and separate Hollywood's bargains from its money pits.
Click continue to see our findings. (And for a special, in-depth report about Tom Cruise's bankability, click here.)
