Nowadays it’s a lot harder for actors to be classified as movie stars, as franchises and intellectual properties have become a bigger deal with regard to drawing large audiences. Nevertheless, there are a handful of actors who remain global phenomenons, such as Tom Cruise, whose been a Hollywood mainstay since the early 1980s.
Anyone remotely familiar with Tom Cruise would rightfully assume that hiring him for a movie costs a pretty penny, but exactly price does his acting services fetch? When taking into account everything he’s been in for almost 40 years, supposedly it’s as much as $7,091 per word.
This information comes from Casumo, which claims that over the course of his career, Tom Cruise collects upwards of $7,000 for each word he speaks in a movie, or around $205,609 for around 10 seconds of work. The website also noted how Cruise often collects a percentage of a movie’s profits rather than a traditional salary. Because he’s done this with the Mission: Impossible movies, that’s led to him hauling in over $200 million.
Falling into second place in on the actors side of this roundup is Kurt Russell, who collects $5,682 per word, followed by Johnny Depp in third place with $4,877 per word, and so on. As for the actresses category, Cameron Diaz, who is retired from onscreen performing, evidently still ranks in 1st place with $4,637 per word, in large part thanks to only taking a $1 million paycheck for Bad Teacher in exchange for a percentage of that film’s profits, ultimately scoring her $42 million.
It should be noted that while Tom Cruise may be #1 for most amount of money per word overall, he doesn’t hold the top spot for highest-paid actor on a specific project with regard to word count. Kurt Russell has that honor, who was paid $15 million for his role as Sergeant Todd in Soldier, which breaks down to $36,855 for each of the 407 words he spoke. Julia Roberts is the #1 actress in this category, earning $10 million for her role as Tess Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven, which breaks down to $14,599 for each of her 685 spoken words.
You can head over to Casumo to see its full actor and actress breakdowns, but suffice it to say that Tom Cruise has done quite well for himself financially. And while some of the actors and actresses on these lists aren’t as popular they used to be, as stated earlier, Cruise continues to be sought after for various major motion pictures.
Within the last decade, Tom Cruise has appeared in the Jack Reacher movies, Knight and Day, Rock of Ages, Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow, The Mummy and American Made. Oh, and of course we can’t forget about his continued tenure as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise, having most recently reprised the character in Mission: Impossible - Fallout.
Looking to the future, Tom Cruise is reprising Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick, which has been moved to December 23. He’ll also return as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible 7 and Mission: Impossible 8, which will arrive on July 23, 2021 and August 5, 2022, respectively. However, because Mission: Impossible 7 had to halt shooting, both movies could end up being delayed.
We here at CinemaBlend will keep you up to date on what’s happening with Tom Cruise’s career, but for now, be sure to look through our 2020 release schedule.
