Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Scarlett Johansson are the highest-paid actor and actress, respectively.
The 47-year-old former WWE World Champion earned a whopping $89.4 million before taxes while the 35-year-old star of The Avengers was paid $56 million according to Forbes.
As the gender pay gap has been a hot topic in Hollywood in recent years, it is still very evident according to these numbers as Johansson would be eighth on the male list behind Adam Sandler at $57 million.
When added up cumulatively, the top 10 actors nearly doubled the pay of their female counterparts as they earned nearly $600 million combined while the top 10 actresses made a total of $315 million according to Forbes.
The data for the list summarized the on-screen and off-screen earnings between June 1, 2018 and June 1, 2019.
Scarlett’s role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Black Widow was a huge part of her earnings as has an eight-figure salary plus backend points on Marvel films.
Forbes list of 10 highest-paid actors
10. Will Smith: $35 million
9. Paul Rudd: $41 million
8. Chris Evans: $43.5 million
7. Adam Sandler: $57 million (tie)
6. Bradley Cooper: $57 million (tie)
5. Jackie Chan: $58 million
4. Akshay Kumar: $65 million
3. Robert Downey Jr.: $66 million
2. Chris Hemsworth: $76.4 million
1. Dwayne Johnson: $89.4 million
Forbes list of 10 highest-paid actresses
10. Ellen Pompeo: $22 million
9. Charlize Theron: $23 million
8. Margot Robbie: $23.5 million
7. Elisabeth Moss: $24 million
6. Kaley Cuoco: $25 million
5. Jennifer Aniston: $28 million
4. Nicole Kidman: $34 million
3. Reese Witherspoon: $35 million
2. Sofia Vergara: $44.1 million
1. Scarlett Johansson: $56 million
There was a near $12 million drop-off from Johansson to the second talent on the actress list as Sofia Vergara was paid $44.1 million over that period.
Many of the actresses are making strides to close-in on the pay gap by producing their own projects including Margot Robbie, Nicole Kidman, and Reese Witherspoon.
In fact seven of the top 10 highest-earning actresses of 2019 were producers of their own projects according to Forbes.
The 57-year-old American-Colombian star is famously the highest-paid actress on Television as she stars in Modern Family and also has lucrative entrepreneurial ventures including Sofia Jeans and a furniture range at Rooms To Go.
The gender pay gap in Hollywood has been a hot-button issue as recently a study into the wages of 250 Hollywood stars in more than 1,300 films has found male actors can earn up to seven-figures more than a woman – and not much has changed since the 1980s.
Sofia Izquierdo Sanchez, from Huddersfield University, John S Heywood, from Wisconsin University, and Maria Navarro Paniagua, from Lancaster University, studied the earnings of 246 working actors between 1980 and 2015.
In the 1,343 films, the economists found that not only has the gender pay gap been ‘quite persistent’ since the start of their research period, but it doesn’t show ‘any signs of improving’, The Guardian reported back in September.
The study found women earn $1.1 million less per film than male co-stars who have a similar level of experience in the industry.
‘We were thinking that we would find a gap, because so many actresses have been bringing the issue up,’ Ms Izquierdo Sanchez said.
But we were surprised to find so much of a gap, especially as we were talking about actors of the highest level, like Meryl Streep’.
The analysis, which sourced information from Box Office Mojo and IMDb, took into consideration several factors including an actor’s past accolades and experience.
