10 Highest Paid Actors & Their Lowest Grossing Movies

Salary: $15-20 million per movie

Back in 1999, a floppy-haired Bradley Cooper was a second year film acting student who earnestly asked Sean Penn for acting tips on an episode of Inside the Actors Studio. 16 years on he's one Hollywood's biggest players, commanding hefty paychecks for most roles. 

Following the success of American Sniper, which nabbed him a third Oscar nomination, Cooper is fully expected to command in the $15-20 million range per role, leaping past the $15 million he got for The Hangover Part III. 

Lowest Grossing Film: Serena (2014) - $176k

Wow, what went wrong with this one? The star power was certainly there - Cooper starred once more opposite his Silver Linings Playbook Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence - and it seemed to have that lofty, sophisticated period drama romance feel that can sometimes work like gang busters. 

However, evidently audiences (and indeed the Academy) were utterly apathetic about the Depression Era-story of how the future of a timber empire is thrown into question following the marriage of owner George Pemberton (Cooper) and the titular Serena (Lawrence). The film was criticised as being "a slog" and "an overwrought and jumbled melodrama," earning back little of its almost $30 million budget.