Other top-earning stars rule the TV-film roost

Leonardo DiCaprio

Aside from the really prosperous “tops at the tills” luminaries like Robert Downey Jr., Dwayne Johnson and Bradley Cooper, other standout performers at the tills for 2016-’17 include Leonardo DiCaprio at $22M; Liam Neeson and Chris Hemsworth, both at $21M; Ben Affleck and Christian Bale at $20M, and Will Smith and Mark Wahlberg at $18M.

On TV, the big earners include Sofia Vergara at $37M, and Ashton Kutcher at $20M. Even the also-rans didn’t do all that badly, with Kerry Washington pulling in $6M, and Claire Danes earning $5M. That may sound like peanuts compared to Downey’s $40M and and Vergara’s $37M—but, it definitely still ain’t hay!

What about the younger comers, how are they faring? Uh, everybody (including Downey) step aside and make way for the absolute top grosser of them all, in whatever show biz field—Queen Beyoncé—who ran laughing and singing and hoofing and pulling a huge ring on it to the bank—with a whopping $76M!

Other new “still young” millionaires include the Olsen twins with $40M, Justin Timberlake with $42M, Daniel Radcliffe with $13M, plus Miley Cyrus, the Jonas brothers, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Dakota Fanning still doing quite nicely, thanks.

It’s key to take note that all those dizzying zeroes are not just salary but, more significantly these days, were earned from endorsement deals, deferred payments, investment in productions, etc.

In other words, quite a number of stars have opted to not collect their hefty talent fees, and instead exchange them for a similarly big percentage of a production’s future profits—which occasionally turn out to be a really huge bonus!

For instance, some seasons ago, a big star inverted his top-of-the-line fee of $21M—and ended up making $60M when his starrer turned out to be a stupendous moneymaking machine!

Granted, those phenomenal outcomes are rare, but when a savvy star hits the jackpot these days, he wins everything in the bank’s vault—including the bank building itself!