Dwayne Johnson named highest earning male actor of the year

Dwayne Johnson has been named Hollywood’s highest paid male actor for the second year in a row.

According to Forbes, the former wrestler has earned an estimated $89.4m in the last 12 months thanks to roles in Fast & Furious spin-off Hobbs and Shaw, action thriller Skyscraper and his HBO comedy Ballers, which makes him $700,000 an episode. A large portion of his wealth is down to a lucrative back-end deal that sees him earning up to 15% of the box office from his films.
Johnson is followed by Avengers stars Chris Hemsworth and Robert Downey Jr in second and third positions, respectively. Hemsworth netted a reported $76.4m for his Marvel work and his role in Sony’s commercially misfiring reboot Men in Black: International while Downey Jr was close behind with $66m.

Other Marvel stars on the top 10 include Bradley Cooper in sixth with $57m, Chris Evans in eighth with $43.5m and Paul Rudd in ninth with $41m. For Cooper only 10% of his earnings came from Marvel, with the majority stemming from A Star is Born. The actor-director forfeitted an upfront salary and instead bet on a back-end deal which paid off: the film earned $435m worldwide and earned him $40m.

While the list is dominated by American stars, the Indian-born Canadian actor Akshay Kumar has taken the fourth position thanks to Hindi-language hits Kesari and Mission Mangal. Jackie Chan is also in fifth place thanks to international co-productions such as Viy 2: Journey to China co-starring Charles Dance and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The list also includes Adam Sandler, who continues to profit from his deal with Netflix, and Will Smith, who recently starred in the Disney hit Aladdin.