The list of highest paid actors of 2022 features a lot of familiar names.
Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling took an equal payout for the upcoming movie ‘Barbie’, and Will Smith made the top 3 despite the ‘Chris Rock slap’ moment.
Mind you, no one made more than Tom Cruise and Daniel Craig.
Between them, the highest paid actors of 2022 have made $500 million this year alone.
10. Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie – $12.5 million each
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Ryan Gosling and Margon Robbie will play Ken and Barbie in the upcoming film based on the ultra-popular fashion doll by Mattel.
Barbie is scheduled to be released in the U.S. in 2023.
Will Ferrell and Simu Liu will also star in the hotly-anticipated film
Gosling and Robbie will have equal importance in the plot and equal screentime.
So, it makes sense that they should receive the same salary.
9. Steve Carell – $12.5 million
Steve Carell voices Gru in the computer-animated comedy Minions: The Rise of Gru.
The film is part of the Despicable Me franchise but it’s a prequel.
It tells the story of main character Gru, an 11-year-old kid who plans to become a supervillain.
This is the only animation film here, so technically that makes Carell the only voice actor on the list.
The movie was a big hit, grossing more than $790 million against a budget of ‘just’ $80 million.
8. Chris Pine – $13 million
Assuming there are no further delays, Star Trek 4 (working title) will be released in December 2023.
The film will serve as a sequel to the 2016 movie Star Trek Beyond.
There are a lot of things we don’t know about it yet, but we do know that Chris Pine has finally agreed to reprise his role as Captain James T. Kirk.
And for a cool $13 million, who wouldn’t?
7. Jason Momoa – $15 million
If there’s one thing we’re learning here, it’s that it pays to star in sequels.
Momoa will play Arthur Curry / Aquaman in the upcoming DC superhero film Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the sequel to Aquaman (2018).
Set to hit the screen in 2023, the film also stars Nicole Kidman, Amber Heard and Dolph Lundgren.
6. Vin Diesel, Tom Hardy, Joaquin Phoenix – $20 million each
The list of actors who will make $20 million in 2022 is actually much longer than this.
Other than Diesel, Phoenix and Hardy, it also includes Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington and Chris Hemsworth.
They will all reprise a role they previously played except for Reynolds and Ferrell, who will star in an original musical titled Spirited.
Obviously, most of the attention will go to Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker and Tom Hardy as Venom.
There’s also a lot of hype around Fast X, the tenth film in the Fast Saga that will see Vin Diesel reprise his role as ‘Dom’.
Last but not least, Hemsworth will star as Tyler Rake in Extraction 2 and Washington will star in Equalizer 3.
5. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson – $22.5 million
Dwayne Johnson will play the title character in the upcoming superhero film Black Adam.
This is the 11th movie in the DC Extended Universe series and it tells the story of Teth-Adam / Black Adam, a superhero who comes back after being imprisoned for 5,000 years.
Technically, this isn’t Johnson’s first time playing a superhero.
He also made a brief cameo in the 2019 film Shazam! and he voices Krypto / Superdog / Bark Kent in the 2022 animation film DC League of Super-Pets.
4. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt – $30 million each
Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt will both receive a $30m pay out in 2022.
Having said that, the projects they’re working on are drastically different.
DiCaprio will play the role of a criminal alongside Robert De Niro in the Western crime movie Killers of the Flower Moon.
Meanwhile Brad Pitt will star alongside Lewis Hamilton in the as yet unnamed film about Formula 1 produced by Apple.
3. Will Smith – $35 million
Earlier this year, Will Smith made headlines for all the wrong reasons when he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars ceremony.
He apologized profusely but that didn’t save him from the inevitable internet memes.
Mind you, this had no immediate effect on his career because he’s still third on the list of highest-paid actors in 2022.
Smith will receive $35 million for his role in the upcoming action thriller film Emancipation, scheduled for 2023.
Set in the mid 1800s, the movie tells the story of of Peter (Smith), a slave who escapes from a Louisiana plantation.
2. Daniel Craig – $100 million
Daniel Craig has been so busy playing James Bond that we almost failed to notice all the other stuff he’s starred in.
In 2019, he played Benoit Blanc in the mystery film Knives Out.
The movie was such a huge unexpected hit that Netflix decided to spend an exorbitant amount of money to acquire the rights to two sequels.
Craig is set to reprise his role as Blanc for the upcoming sequel titled Glass Onion: a Knives Out Mystery and he’s going to get $100m for his trouble.
And finally for number one on the list of highest paid actors in 2022…
1. Tom Cruise – $100+ million
Top Gun: Maverick was Tom Cruise’s biggest ever hit, and it landed him a $100m payday.
The star accepted a relatively low salary upfront in exchange for a portion of the box office revenue.
It was a smart move.
He ‘only’ received a $12.5 million salary upfront, but made more than $100 million in total because the movie was a hit at the box office.
Since it was released, the film has grossed $1.355 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2022.
