10 Ridiculous Movie Star Paychecks

7. Tom Cruise - War Of The Worlds (2005)

Tom Cruise War Of The Worlds Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg continued their budding bromance with this loose adaptation of HG Wells' seminal sci-fi novel. The Beard postponed shooting on Munich while Cruise delayed Mission: Impossible III to shoot the movie in an impressive ten weeks, with the result being the biggest commercial hit of the latter's career at the time. In order to go from script to shoot in a matter of months, Cruise decided to forgo any salary in order to receive the greenlight for the $132 million-budgeted movie and instead opted to take 20% of the movie's profits. It was a wise move from the business-savvy actor, as War of the Worlds took $591 million worldwide and over $110 million on home video. Not bad, considering besides the impressive CGI the movie was far from the pinnacle of either Cruise or Spielberg's careers. The result was the biggest payday of Tom Cruise's career that wasn't part of the Mission:Impossible franchise, and the second-highest of his entire career behind M:I 2. The actor banked around $100 million from War of the Worlds, marking another nice little earner for an actor regularly named as Hollywood's best-paid.
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