"The Golden Compass" isn't a one-off for Kidman. In fact, its her fourth big box office dud. For every dollar she was paid for her last three films (excluding "Compass" and "Margot at the Wedding"), her flicks returned a measly $8 on average to the studios. Compare that with less expensive A-listers like Angelina Jolie, whose rate skirts $10 million a picture, and whose last three films grossed $15 on average for every dollar she earned.
Kidman isn't alone in the overpaid celebrity category, according to Forbes' Ultimate Star Payback list of the most bankable actors in Hollywood. To compile the list, Forbes examined the salaries, budgets and returns for films headlined by some of the biggest stars in the industry. The first step in calculating our payback figures required adding up the film's worldwide box office and U.S. DVD revenues for films released prior to June 2007. We then subtracted the budget (which includes the upfront compensation for actors) for each film to derive net revenue.
Next, to calculate gross income, the actor's total compensation was divided into net revenue. The gross income for the last three movies for each actor was averaged to calculate his or her ultimate payback. We deliberately used gross income rather than net income in our analysis because the former is a better measure of a movie star's ability to generate income for a film.
Movie studios are famous for their accounting creativity. The further down the profit and loss statement you travel, the more room for chicanery. While there is little debate over a film's budget, marketing expenses are treated differently for almost every movie.
In Tinseltown, a film must be able to at least recover its production budget to be considered a box office success. The only film on the list that didn't recover its costs at all was "Gigli" (2003) starring Jennifer Lopez, which reportedly cost $54 million to make but barely earned a fraction of that at the box office and on video.
