This morning I saw a list of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood. Not surprisingly Reese Witherspoon and Angelina Jolie topped the list.
The Highest Paid Actress list appears in The Hollywood Reporter’s “Women in Entertainment: Power 100″ issue, set to hit newsstands on Tuesday, December 4th.
1) The Hollywood starlet that currently wears the salary crown is Reese Witherspoon. This, even after her recent film Rendition didn’t come close to meeting expectations, grossing a paltry $15,903,768 at the worldwide box office. Rendition was a New Line film from screenwriter Kelley Sane’s story about a CIA analyst based in Cairo who has his world turned upsidedown after he witnesses the interrogation of a foreign national by the Egyptian secret police.
Witherspoon played the role of Isabella El-Ibrahim, the pregnant American wife of an Egyptian-born chemical engineer whose family emigrated to the States in the mid 1980s, who is shipped off to a third world country for interrogation after he is deemed a political prisoner in our post-9/11 world.
But this apparently didn’t affect the earning potential of the 31-year-old Academy Award winning star as she still commands $15-$20 million per movie. This was enough to place her at the top of the salary list for actresses in 2007. This is also proof-positive how an Academy Award can effect your career. Some actresses can cash in on that “elite” actress status for YEARS after.
2) Angelina Jolie is as A-list as they come in Hollywood and she is free to choose just about any role she wants. She usually demands a salary that is similar to Reese, but her latest movie Beowulf brought her $8 million. By the way, if you are going to see Beowulf, don’t bother unless you see it in IMAX 3D. It is the most amazing 3D movie I’ve seen. Some of the animation is so lifelike that Angelina had to warn her loved ones about the semi-nude scene even though it wasn’t her real body. For those of you that have not read the book, it can be a little gory but the effects are fantastic. It isn’t any more violent then a movie like 300.
3) Cameron Diaz came in third, with a $15 million asking price per movie. Her last major movie was Shrek the Third as the voice of Princess Fiona. Before that was The Holiday in 2006 and In Her Shoes in 2005.
Diaz has two films slated for 2008. The first is What Happens in Vegas… which is set in Sin City and is a story of two people who discover they’ve gotten married following a wild night where one of them wins a huge jackpot with the other one’s quarter. The pair try to undermine each other and get their hands on the money but end up falling in love along the way. Along with Cameron Diaz, the cast includes Ashton Kutcher and Queen Latifah.
The second movie Cameron has planned for 2008 is titled The Box. It is a Horror / Thriller movie where a wooden box arrives on the doorstep of a troubled married couple, who open it and become instantly wealthy. Little do they realize that opening the box also kills someone they don’t know. This film is currently filming and includes a cast of James Marsden, Frank Langella, Michele Durrett, Gillian Jacobs, and Patrick Canty.
4) In fourth place is Nicole Kidman. She dropped two places from last year but still manages to demand $10 million to $15 million per film. This Australian red-headed beauty is widely recognized as one of Hollywood’s most elegant actresses.
Her role in Moulin Rouge resulted in her first Oscar nomination but by injuring herself in the movie, she had to pull out of the leading role in The Panic Room, which eventually ended up in the lap of Jodie Foster. In 2006 Nicole took a huge paycut in the movie Eucalyptus, produced by Fox Searchlight. She accepted only $500,000 to help keep the movie’s costs down but it was produced in Australia which is thought to be a big reason why she took the job.
You may not know that she was originally cast as Mrs. Smith in the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith and as Ulla in The Producers but had to back out due to scheduling conflicts. Kidman was also considered for the lead role in Catwoman (eventually going to Halle Berry) and The Painted Veil (which eventually went to her best friend Naomi Watts).
5, 6, 7) In a virtual tie for fifth place is Renee Zellweger, Sandra Bullock, and Julia Roberts who all get about $10 million to $15 million per movie. Julia hasn’t been on screen since playing Tess Ocean in the 2004 hit, Oceans Twelve. Since then she’s played voices in the animated feature films The Ant Bully and Charlotte’s Web. Her newest film to be released is Charlie Wilson’s War which will be out in theaters this month. It is a drama based on Texas congressman Charlie Wilson’s covert dealings in Afghanistan, where his efforts to assist rebels in their war with the Soviets have some unforeseen and long-reaching effects.
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| Renee Zellweger | Sandra Bullock | Julia Roberts |
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8, 9) In a dead heat for eighth place is Drew Barrymore and Jodie Foster. Each actress receives about $10 - $12 million per movie.
Drew hit screens in 2007 as Sophie Foster in the romantic comedy Music and Lyrics, opposite Hugh Grant which took in over $145 million worldwide. She also appeared in the smaller movie Lucky You which grossed $8,382,447 worldwide.
Barrymore spent time on the small screen in 2007 with appearances on the TV comedy Family Guy as the voice of Jillian. Her next movie appearance will hit theaters in August 2008 and will be titled He’s Just Not That Into You, a comedy directed by Ken Kwapis that includes star-studded cameos from Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, and Ben Affleck.
Jodie Foster’s 2007 big-screen debut came as Erica Bain in the action thriller The Brave One where her character struggles to recover from a brutal attack by setting out on a mission of revenge. The movie saw moderate success, grossing $69,563,218 worldwide.
You will see a little more of Foster in 2008 with two movies currently in post-production. Nim’s Island is a family comedy about a young girl that inhabits an isolated island with her scientist father and communicates with a reclusive author of the novel she’s reading.
Jodie is on both sides of the camera in Sugarland, a drama of a recent law school graduate that teams up with an experienced public-interest attorney to take on a sugar baron on behalf of exploited migrant workers. Sugarland is the first time Jodie Foster has directed a movie since the 1995 romance comedy Home for the Holidays.
10) Rounding out the top 10 is Halle Berry who throws about $10 million into her bank account after each movie project. Her movies had a semi-quiet year at the box office though I’m sure that didn’t effect her paycheck much.
First, she appeared as Rowena Price in the crime drama Perfect Stranger. This movie only saw $23 million in the U.S. but managed another $49 million in the foreign markets to end with a respectable (though still somewhat disappointing) $72.8 million.
Halle also played Audrey Burke in the movie Things We Lost in the Fire, which ironically opened at the same time as the giant Southern California wildfires. The movie only scratched together $3.28 million worldwide and was no doubt a loss for Paramount.
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