Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Saturday, March 1st. Today on Forbes, the highest paid actors of

24. Dwayne Johnson first announced his involvement in the film Red One on Instagram in June

2021, the first of dozens of posts promoting the movie to his 394 million followers over the course

of the next three years, leading up to the movie's theatrical release last November.

Even after negative critical reception and middling box office performance, $186 million

worldwide against a reported $250 million budget, Johnson kept pushing the movie online,

and when it debuted on Amazon Prime Video a month later, Red One drew a record 50 million

viewers in its opening weekend. As all eyes are on Hollywood this weekend for the Academy Awards

on Sunday, this is actually what movie stardom looks like in 2025.

For the top tier of Hollywood talent, acting in a film has become just one element of a multi-year,

multi-platform partnership between a studio and an actor to develop, produce, and most importantly,

market a project to audiences. Those who have proven their ability

to personally convert fans into customers have become more valuable than ever before.

Johnson's contract for Red One, which included upfront fees for acting and producing,

as well as a buyout of back-end participation for both roles, will pay him an estimated

$50 million, believed to be the highest fee plus buyout total in history for a single movie.

When combined with Johnson's impressive deal for Moana 2 and his catalog of older titles,

he earned an estimated $88 million last year, after paying fees to his agent and

lawyer, making him the highest paid actor of 2024. Right on his heels is Ryan Reynolds, who similarly

was the lead producer, co-writer, and star of the year's biggest live-action theatrical hit,

Deadpool and Wolverine.

He even produced commercials for the movie through his marketing agency maximum effort.

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