Adam Sandler is one of the few actors in Hollywood who can still demand a paycheck
north of $15 million. That’s great for his bank account but not always
so great for the studios that employ him. A string of recent misfires
lands the funny man at the top of our most overpaid list.
The two biggest offenders on Sandler’s resume: Jack & Jill, in which he played both halves of a brother-sister twin set, and That’s My Boy, in which Sandler (47) played the father of Andy Samberg (35). Jack & Jill
grossed $150 million but the film cost an estimated $80 million to
make. Considering studios take home about half of box office receipts,
that means only about $70 million flowed to Sony, which also had to pay to advertise the stinker. That kind of return didn’t justify Sandler’s large upfront pay.
That’s My Boy did even worse. With an estimated budget of
$70 million, the film brought in only $57 million at the box office
worldwide. In other words, it was a major bomb. We estimate that for
every dollar Sandler was paid on his last three movies, the films
returned an average of $3.40.
Of course when a Sandler movie hits, his pay can be justified. The
problem for Hollywood is that telling a hit from a miss before the movie
is made is almost impossible. But with someone like Sandler, you have
to pay up hoping that the movie will do big business at the box office.
Sony won that bet with Grown Ups 2. That movie grossed $246
million on an estimated $80 million budget, making it one of Sandler’s
best performing films. Our research for this list comes from our Celebrity 100 work though so we are only counting movie that came out before June. Grown Ups 2 hit theaters in July.
Still, one has to wonder if it’s worth continuing to pay Sandler’s
huge upfront fees in the hopes that his next film will be a hit when it
seems audiences might be getting tired of Sandler’s shtick. Don’t be
surprised if studios start asking him to take less upfront in favor of a
heftier chunk of the back end if the film is a hit, or if the actor
starts trying to do more animated work. The cartoon Hotel Transylvania was the biggest hit of his career, grossing $358 million at the box office worldwide.
To compile our list we looked at the last three movies each actor
starred in over the three years to June 1. Actors don’t make as many
films as they used to so that first criteria eliminated a lot of folks
right away. Drew Barrymore, who has appeared on our overpaid list in
past years, was disqualified this year because she didn’t have enough
films in our time frame.
Looking at pay, movie budgets and expenses, we calculated a return on
investment number for each star and then averaged those numbers to get
an overall return.
Close behind Sandler in second place is Katherine Heigl. For every
dollar she was paid Heigl returned an average of $3.50. After films like
27 Dresses Heigl was heralded as the new queen of romantic
comedies. She started demanding a big upfront fee and studios were
willing to pay it … until flops like Killers and One for the Money.
Reese Witherspoon ranks third with an average $3.90 return for every
$1 she gets paid. Witherspoon is currently reinventing her career. She’s
been smartly buying up hot, female-centric books for her production
company. We will see more of Witherspoon behind the scenes in the coming
years although she’s starring in Wild, the best-selling book
about Cheryl Strayed’s 1,000 mile solo hike. Expect Witherspoon to take a
huge pay cut for her own movies.
Kevin James make our list for the first time in fifth place. The actor actually ranked on our Best Actors for the Buck list last year with an average return of $22.40 for every dollar he was paid. This year his return falls to $6.10 because of Here Comes the Boom.
The film, about a teacher who tries to become a mixed martial arts
fighter to raise money for his school, grossed only $73 million at the
box office worldwide.
Another new comer to our list this year is Steve Carell. The comedian had a major misfire with The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.
The film grossed just $22 million at the box office worldwide. We
estimate that for for every dollar he was paid Carell returned an
average $10, ranking him seventh on our list.
