11 Movie Actors Who Were Paid The Biggest Salary Per Words

1. Jack Nicholson - $166,101 Per Word For Batman

Jack Nicholson Joker Payday
Warner Bros.

Jack Nicholson's Batman payday is the stuff of Hollywood legend.

At the time of its release back in 1989, Tim Burton's picture was largely marketed on its Clown Prince of Crime rather than its Dark Knight. After all, this was a time when many were left baffled by the casting of Mr. Mom as the iconic Batman.

Of course, Michael Keaton turned out to be a phenomenal Caped Crusader, yet Warner Bros. opted to sell the movie based on its 'big bad' - and in doing that, they went all out to get Jack Nicholson on board as their centrepiece villain.

Up front, Nicholson took home a cool $6 million for his turn in Batman. But what the veteran actor's ace in the hole was, was in how he negotiated a backend deal that saw him receive somewhere in the region of an extra $90 million by the time all was said and done.

Throughout Batman, Jack spouted just 585 words of dialogue. For Warner Bros., that worked out as them paying the iconic Nicholson a mammoth $166,101 for each and every single word for his time as the Jester of the Genocide.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.