Thanks to Forbes.com’s Natalie Robehmed and her 8.20 story about the highest-paid actresses over the last 12 months, I’m finally paying attention to Bingbing Fan, a hot Chinese actress who pulled down $21 million (pre-tax) from roles in X-Men: Days of Future Past and The White-Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom plus commercial endorsement revenue from Chopard and L’Oreal. Fine. Hello, Bingbing!
And now that I’ve made Ms. Fan’s acquaintance, I’d…well, I think I’d like to go back to not contemplating her if that’s okay. It’s not just my aversion to Asian cinema (sorry) and particularly historical Asian cinema (especially if it involves swords) but…I’m not going to go there. Let’s drop it.
The big news about the Forbes survey is not that all these women are doing so well but that guys are getting paid a lot more.
How many of the top earners made their dough by acting in really good films and how many brought in the dough with shitty mass-market projects and/or commercial endorsements? Just about all of them.
The top earner was Jennifer Lawrence and her Hunger Games revenue ($52 million), followed by Scarjo ($35.5 million), Melissa McCarthy ($23 million), Bingbing Fan, Jennifer Aniston ($16.5 million), Julia Roberts ($16 million for what? commercial endorsements?), Angelina Jolie ($15 million), Reese Witherspoon ($15 million for that horrible Hot Pursuit comedy she did with Sofia Vergara?), Anne Hathaway ($12 million for what?) and Kristen Stewart ($12 million).
Gwyneth Paltrow became the 12th highest earner by doing what again? She’s not on my radar at all and she earned $9 million? Good for her but…whatever.