Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is the highest paid actor

[Damphousse]

Quote

The Rock has dislodged Iron Man from the top of Forbes' highest-paid actor list.

Dwayne Johnson, the most successful performer to cross over from pro wrestling, pulled in $64.5 million between June 2015-2016, thanks to his roles in the Fast & Furious franchise and San Andreas. His participation in animated Disney feature Moana, due Nov. 23, will likely help his placing on next year's list.

Robert Downey Jr. slid down to eighth with $33 million, which ties him with Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan.

The list, released Thursday, served to further illustrate the pay gap between men and women. Top female earner Jennifer Lawrence's $46 million amounts to 72% of Johnson's income and would only place her sixth among the men, between Johnny Depp ($48 million) and Ben Affleck ($43 million).

There you have it folks.  That's the market you are operating in.  I'm not mad but it is an eye opener.

Kind of weak for them to make a gender thing about this.  This list is a rogue's gallery.  People are complaining about the gender of the highest paid rogue?

None of my favorite actors are on this list.  Johnny Depp used to be somewhat interesting but now it is getting old.

[tugela]

I find it amusing when this guy is described as an "actor".

Just goes to show that the paycheck at the end of the day is not indication of skills at the craft.

[Andrew Reid]

1 hour ago, Damphousse said:

None of my favorite actors are on this list.  Johnny Depp used to be somewhat interesting but now it is getting old.

Rogue's gallery is a good way to put it.

Christ Johnny Depp now looks like a scene from Oldboy

What a fuck up.

That's what happens when you fall into a rut and role out the same thing year after year

Johnny Canon!

[Flynn]

I like Rock, though I don't watch his movies. But those movies are what the masses want to see. There have always been dumb studio movies, but it seems like most major releases are geared towards the Comic Con crowd now. If you look at a list of major releases from like 1978 or 1979, it's shocking how many more serious movies geared towards intelligent adults there tended to be. Movies have always been commercial endeavors, but they weren't always so overwhelmingly mindless. And yes, I know there are are still some quality major studio films and plenty of serious indy films, and the studios have always put out some mindless fare. That doesn't disprove my point. I'm solely talking about what the overall lineup of films the major studios are putting out now as opposed to what they used to put out.

[Andrew Reid]

I see it as a wider social phenomenon

And 30 year olds into Star Wars... grow up!

I think it's a case of arrested development... When the masses just want to watch comic book movies... instead of more adult stuff... it is truly a sign of the times isn't it?

Overprotective parenting and a lack of challenges in the modern world = onesie wearing pansies incapable of depth

"Trump for president!"

[Damphousse]

I guess I won't lie.  I like action and scifi.  But really a good drama has far more repeat watchability than action or scifi.

I looked up the highest grossing movies on wikipedia and it is kind of depressing.  You literally have to go back all the way to 2000 to find a movie that isn't about scifi, magic or a cartoon.  Mission Impossible 2 was the highest grossing movie in 2000.  You have to go all the way back to 1997 to find a "chick flick" (Titanic).  After that if you skip Ghost in 1990 and look for something with no scifi, magic, action, etc you have to go all the way back to 1988 Rain Man.

It's amazing the dominance of the fantasy/scifi genere.  Going back over the past decade the cheapest movie to make was the cartoon Frozen, $150 Million!

[fuzzynormal]

Big budget spectacles have always been in the DNA of Hollywood.  What was killing it at the box office about 100 years ago?  Some big budget racist claptrap that was an incredible technical achievement.  Beyond that the film was an abomination.

I guess you could say the 70's were a bit of a gritty renaissance in American cinema, but even then the artistic successes weren't always the biggest hits.

It is interesting to go back and look at American movies through the prism of the box office.  There's a lot of crap in there that we tend to forget.  Film was more diversified simply because it was the premiere motion picture media, but it's not like what's happening in U.S. movies is all that removed from the past.

[Bioskop.Inc]

I don't bother with big Hollywood blockbusters anymore, they just don't hold my attention - weak plots, bad acting etc. I caved in for Star Wars & felt like asking for my money back, it was sooooooo bad it was laughable.

The last film I went to see was Victoria - I had to convince my mate not to go to watch Captain America: Civil War. What really surprised me was that he came out raving about it - best movie he'd seen in a long time & neither of us realised that it was over 2hrs long. The problem is that most people don't want to take a chance on something other than the big bullshit films coming out of America. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not just having a go at American crap, as I feel the same way about the absolute nonsense that is shat out by Britain too!

What has satisfied me recently is that the only American films that I really want to watch are all made by women - two I already knew about, but the third I had no idea existed: American Honey - Andrea Arnold

Certain Women - Kelly Reichardt (by far the best American Director working today)

White Girl - Elizabeth Wood

I want to see a film where I'm not forced to hang my brains up in the closet before watching & which stays with me for more than a milisecond after I leave my seat.

I couldn't give a shit which fuckwit earns the most money, as I won't be throwing my money away on them anytime soon.

I like Woody Allen's approach - pay them minimum wage & let these overpaid click bait twats prove themselves with their apparent skill at their craft, not their ability to whine about how many millions of dollars they get paid.

 

[fuzzynormal]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

"Trump for president!"

The outside looking in is always an interesting perspective.  The USA is typically a bit of a mess, and there's a blessing in that.

12 minutes ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

I'm not just having a go at American crap

You might as well.  We all do over here too.

And I wouldn't worry too much about it.  Intellectual films will always be niche.  Dumb films just have broader appeal.  It's quite simple, really.   A genius, sitting amongst a crowd of morons, can appreciate stupid slapstick and a fart joke.  

However, those morons wouldn't feel comfortable at an art house while that same genius chuckles knowingly at the cutting cultural insight of a witty turn of a phrase or convoluted allegory.  

So what'cha gonna do?  Smart films have to stay small, dumb films go big.  Some try to have it both ways and succeed.  It's all part of the mix.

[Flynn]

Look at this list of releases for 1979 and how many great/serious films are on it:

The Deer Hunter

Time After Time

Norma Rae

The China Syndrome

Manhattan

Alien

The In-Laws

Apocalypse Now

The Onion Field

Being There (perhaps the second greatest Peter Sellers film)

Kramer vs Kramer

The Great Santini

I mean, even many of the popcorn flicks were legitimately great films that would stick with you long after the movie was over. Now? I just can't relate to the vast majority of what the studios are putting out.

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/year/1979

[kaylee]

[Flynn]

The People's Eyebrow

[Tim Sewell]

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. At a time in history when we have pretty much unlimited access to all the world's culture and history people are becoming less and less curious, preferring to spend their time in curated echo chambers.

I'm 52. When I was a kid (here in the UK) there was very limited kids' TV. Even in the long summer holidays, kids' stuff was limited to the morning. So if I found myself allowed to watch TV on a rainy afternoon it was mostly old B&W movies I was watching. There were far fewer books aimed at kids or teenagers, so I went through my mum's bookcases and read everything from Dickens to Len Deighton (how many parents even have bookcases containing anything other than cookbooks and celebrity memoirs now?). So I imbibed from a huge range of culture that spanned decades at least, if not centuries - as did a lot of my peers.

Compare to now, where children have multiple channels devoted to giving them exactly what they want, as a means of advertising to them - no need ever to watch anything outside the comfort zone. Countless 'child-friendly' books - all variations on the same themes - all easy to digest; no need to explore the library or pick a book of the bookshelf to counter rainy-day boredom.

Dumbing down is a fashionable phrase, but that doesn't make it any less real. A dumbed down audience is a lot easier to sell to and to make money out of so, as I say, it really shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

BTW, Trump isn't a solution to our dumbed down culture - he's a product of it.

[mercer]

Back in the 70s, movie producers were hired to run the studios. Today studios are run by Harvard or Wharton business school graduates. They come from corporate America. In a lot of instances, they have no ties to the movie industry. They are selling widgets. The masses buy widgets. 

[JurijTurnsek]

Idiocracy, much?

[Zak Forsman]

I think Dwayne Johnson is going to surprise people in the coming years. When he was first trying to breakout, we saw he was interested in being part of riskier, more art-house productions. And after struggling to be taken seriously (and trudging through the likes of The Tooth Fairy and Escape from Witch Mountain), I'd be willing to bet he's going to use the clout he has now to stretch and participate in some more thoughtful/compelling/cutting edge cinema. I doesn't hurt that he's a genuinely good person too, and deserves his success. I put he and Keanu Reeves in the same category: they've both built up so much goodwill in the industry and with their fans that (despite any perceived limit on their acting chops) that they are bulletproof to critics.

[Ed_David]

This is a great thread.

Cinema changed in the 90s. The era of international box office. Tentpoles.

Then the marvel franchise.

The dumbing down of films for the sake of larger global transcultural appeal.

And it works.

People watch the latest superman reboot again and again.

The only major studio that took risks....pixar....now has become a merchandise company thanks to disney buying it.

Vote w your wallets. Say no to tent pole!

[Bioskop.Inc]

The latest stats for world wide sales figures recently put the French coming second to the USA - apparently they do massive business in Asia. It kiinda made me feel like the world hadn't gone completely made. Unfortuneately, the UK still laps up the American Bullshit films like there is no tomorrow & there isn't a great amount of diversity. I rarely go to the cinema anymore, as most of the films that I want to watch either just don't come to my city or are gone in a flash. I'm left watching most things on Blu-Ray, which isn't all that bad - can drink, go to the toilet, just do what I want really...

When I lived in France, there were local council funded cinemas that would show films no one else would - got to see all of Wong Kar-Wei's films in a lovely refurbished old fashioned cinema that projected prestine prints (yep, no digital nonsense all celluloid).

The problem with the 70s was that they were given too much freedom, made great films, but spent a load of cash in the process for very little [immediate] return - they are the ones that fucked American cinema in the ass.....! Now we're left with this pile of horse shit industry that couldn't give a rat's ass about making good films, just ones that they can rip off the idiots with - shame, a real shame.

[Ed_David]

Steven soderbergh gave an amazing lecture on this. That the film industry no longer has execs who care about making a good product.

[The Chris]

I don't begrudge anyone for getting paid, if someone is willing to write the check take it. Everyone here would take $60m to slough it through shit like Fast and Furious, anyone saying they wouldn't is flat out lying, because you would then have the freedom to do pretty much any project you want. Hats off to The Rock for becoming the most bankable star on the planet right now.

Tentpole movies aren't bad because they're made by Americans, they're bad because the major movie studios are all owned by giant conglomerates like Disney, Sony and Viacom. All they care about is keeping shareholders happy, and safe movies with a built in audience does just that. As long as people eat up numb nut Star Wars crap and various cinematic universes, it's not going to change. Just look at the he slate of tentpoles over the next three years - an endless barrage of Marvel/DC/Transformers/Star Wars movies  

And remember, most of a blockbusters' gross comes from markets outside the U.S., cars blowing up and dudes in tights are easy to translate.