Johnny Depp Tops List Of Hollywood’s Most Overpaid Actors

Johnny Depp has just topped another Hollywood list, but this time there will be no awards handed out. Even if there were, Mr. Depp would probably not be on hand to accept it. This list is Forbes’ annual list of Hollywood’s Most Overpaid Actors and Johnny is No. 1, a dubious honor to be sure.

Forbes Names Depp The Most Overpaid Actor In All Of Hollywood

Every year, Forbes magazine compiles a list of Hollywood’s most overpaid actors, but one might ask just how that list created. It’s a fairly straightforward formula, at least in principle. For each actor nominated to the list, an examination of that individual’s most recent three films is conducted. The films used for consideration must have been released at anytime from January to June of that year.

For Johnny Depp, that means his worth has been determined based on Mortdecai, Into the Woods, and Transcendence. While Into the Woods performed well with an ensemble cast, the other two films really dragged Depp’s numbers down. Overall, Johnny Depp returned $1.20 at box offices for every $1.00 he was paid.

While this may be putting too fine a point on it, Depp personally pocketed millions for Transcendence and Mortdecai, while the films flopped at box offices. Looking at those numbers from another perspective, Mortdecai earned just $47 million with a budget of $60 million. Meanwhile, Transcendence just barely earned back its production costs of $100 million.

The 3.7 billion Johnny has earned for Disney with The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise may be his only saving grace, until numbers are tallied for Johnny’s critically successful Black Mass. Also keeping Depp in good standing with Hollywood executives are the planned sequels Alice Through The Looking Glass (2016) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017). Forbes is predicting that these sequels will do well enough to push Depp right off of next year’s list.

Who Else Made That List?

Coming in at second place on Forbes‘ list of Hollywood’s Most Overpaid Actors is Denzel Washington. Much like Depp, Denzel has the big name draw to raise his pay rate, but he has begun to lose influence at box offices. Doing slightly better than Johnny, Washington has been bringing in an average of $6.50 for every dollar paid. Forbes suggests that Denzel may have beat out Depp for the number one slot, but for The Equalizer, which grossed $192 million at box offices.

Showing up in third place was Will Farrell for earning $6.80 for every $1 paid. While Farrell did well with Get Hard, earning $111 million on a $40 million budget, his earnings ratio was weighed down by poor returns on Anchorman 2 and The Campaign.

Coming in at fourth place on the Forbes‘ list is Liam Neeson, even though Taken 3 performed significantly well at the box office. Run All Night was the film that really hurt Neeson’s numbers, returning only $71.6 million in box office receipts on a $50 million budget.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Will Smith made this list, considering how many of his recent films failed to perform. In fact, there have been suspicions that Smith joined the Suicide Squad project, because the ensemble cast would bring in bigger numbers and thereby boost Will’s own value.

The problem with Will Smith’s ratio on box office returns in this case, however, has more to do with the Smith price tag than with the performance of the film Focus. That film brought in an impressive $159 million on a $50 million budget, but the payday Will received on Focus, which averages out to $8.60 for every dollar paid, brings down his numbers and lessens his value.

The rest of the list can be viewed on Forbes‘ website.

[Featured image by John Phillips/Getty Images]