Emma Stone had a banner 2014. She helped The Amazing Spider-Man 2 earn $709 million at the box office worldwide, made her Broadway debut as Sally Bowles in Cabaret and showed everyone that she's the best lip-syncer of all time on The Tonight Show. Now, for the second year in a row, she ranks as the Best Actor for the Buck on FORBES' annual list. We estimate that for every $1 Stone was paid for her recent movies, they returned an average of $61.45.
In 2015, Stone will star in two smaller movies: another Woody Allen film (she starred in Magic in the Moonlight this year) and a new, untitled, Cameron Crowe movie. But now that her Spider-Man character Gwen Stacy is (spoiler alert) dead, it would be great to see Stone take on a superhero franchise of her own. Wonder Woman has already been cast but Marvel has Captain Marvel slated for 2018. It will be the comic book company's first female superhero movie and if Stone isn't right for the part, maybe a studio will come up with the perfect character to test her earning power by giving her the lead in a big movie.
To compile our rundown of Hollywood’s Best Actors for the Buck, we use earnings estimates from our Celebrity 100 list. We look at the last three films each actor starred in before June 2014, since that was the end of our time frame for the Celeb 100. We don’t include animated films or movies where the actor appears in a cameo or a very small role, or movies that were released on fewer than 2,000 screens (so we didn't include Stone's Magic in the Moonlight, which earned $32 million, because its widest release was on 964 screens).
Full List: Hollywood's Best Actors For The Buck
We then look at the budget and revenue for each film (using numbers from Box Office Mojo and other sources) to come up with operating income. We add together the total compensation for each star on the three movies and the operating income from each movie and then divide to come up with the final return on investment number.
Ranking second on our list is Dwayne Johnson, whose return on investment is only about half as good as Stone's. For every $1 he was paid, Johnson's recent movies returned an average of $31.10. Johnson's return is so good mostly thanks the Fast & Furious movies, which have done incredibly well at the box office. The latest, Fast & Furious 6, was the highest-grossing of the franchise, bringing in $789 million worldwide. And while Johnson's 2013 Michael Bay movie Pain & Gain wasn't a huge hit (it earned only $86 million at the global box office), Dwayne took a big pay cut to co-star in the movie, which means it didn't ding his return on investment number.
Johnson's Fast & Furious co-star Vin Diesel ranks fourth on our list with a $26.40 return for every $1 he was paid. Diesel is still a good bargain in Fast & Furious movies even though he gets paid top dollar upfront. Because he only did voice work as Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy we won't include that film in our evaluations for next year's list.
People's Sexiest Man Alive of 2014, Chris Hemsworth, ranks third with a return of $30.70 for every $1 he is paid. Hemsworth lands on our list mostly thanks to Thor: The Dark World. Because the actor doesn't earn Robert Downey, Jr. money for his superhero films he's still a bargain, especially when the movie is a giant hit. The second Thor movie earned $645 million, almost $200 million more than the first. The better these movies do the more leverage Hemsworth will have to demand bigger paychecks for his Thor work, which could hurt his return on investment number unless his other films, like the upcoming Blackhat and In The Heart of the Sea, do better at the box office. His last non-Thor movie, Rush, struggled at the box office earning only $90 million on a budget of $38 million.
Jennifer Lawrence rounds out the top five with a return of $27.60 for every $1 she gets paid. Thanks to Mockingjay and X-Men: Days of Future Past, Lawrence was the highest-grossing actress at the box office this year. And while she earned less than her male co-stars in last year's American Hustle, her paycheck is climbing every day. Don't expect Lawrence to remain a bargain for much longer though. As soon as she's done with her Hunger Games duties next year, every studio in Hollywood will be throwing money at the actress to try and get her to star in their movies.
