Cruise tops acting earning list

Cruise tops acting earning list
Cruise tops acting earning list
Cruise tops acting earning list

Tom Cruise has topped the latest list of the highest earning actors, as compiled by Forbes magazine.

The star of the Mission Impossible franchise earned more than the next two on the list combined.

Currently to be seen on screen in the musical comedy Rock of Ages, Cruise – who turned fifty this week – is back on the top of his profession after a slump that seems to have coincided with his third marriage, beginning in 2005 and ending just as Katie Holmes has filed for divorce.

TV appearances including jumping on Oprah Winfrey’s sofa to profess his love for Katie Holmes and an interview in which he spoke out against psychiatry from his perspective as a scientologist coincided with a drop in his popularity at the box office, but the success of the fourth instalment of the the Mission Impossible franchise, Ghost Protocol, helped him rake in seventy five million dollars – or about forty eight million pounds – in the twelve months to May.

The previous year’s highest earner, Leonardo DiCaprio, tied with Adam Sandler in second place, with an estimated thirty six million dollars each – that’s about twenty three million pounds.

Dwayne Johnson – who started his career under the moniker The Rock – came fourth on the list, followed by Ben Stiller.

The highest paid British actor during the year was the Dictator creator Sacha Baron Cohen, whose thirty million dollars – or about nineteen million pounds – put him at number six on the list, followed by Johnny Depp, Will Smith and Mark Wahlberg.

The only other British actor on the list is Robert Pattinson, who shares the number ten spot with his Twilight co-star Taylor Lautner

Although this list takes only Hollywood’s highest paid men into account, only two women would have made it onto the list; the other Twilight star Kristen Stewart would’ve taken the fifth place on the list, followed by Cameron Diaz in sixth.

Forbes considers upfront pay, profit participation, residuals, endorsments and advertising work to compile the list, so DiCaprio’s reduced performance is partly down to his 2011 earnings falling from the previous year, because films such as J Edgar failed to match the box office success of hits like the previous year’s Inception.

 


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