Try to look past their pretty-pretty faces, if you can -- and their pretty-pretty clothes, and their piles of money and jet-skis and hair extensions. Yes, even their talent.
In some ways, movie stars are just another commodity -- like, uh, pork belly futures with nice teeth -- ones who can make major money for the Hollywood studios who invest in them, and Forbes magazine has compiled a list of the 10 celebs they've deemed to provide the most excellent pay-offs, even though there is no way you could possibly hope to use this information to benefit your own portfolio.
Twilight's Kristen Stewart is No. 1 on the list, with Forbes estimating that for every $1 US Stewart is paid, the studio gets an average $55.83 return on investment. Following her on the list is Anne Hathaway ($45.67 return on investment), Robert Pattinson ($39.43), Daniel Radcliffe ($34.24) and Shia LaBeouf ($29.40). (Check out the complete list in our gallery.)
How these stars wound up part of Forbes’ rankings was the product of much calculation on the magazine’s part. As per the mag, they started work on the list with a sample of the 40 highest-earning actors in Hollywood -- and then disqualified any star who didn't have three lead credits to their name over the last five years. (Please note that small, art-house indie features didn’t apply; only live-action films that opened on 500+ screens were counted.)
Stars don't necessarily blab to Forbes about exactly how many sacks of money they toss into their Cash-aterias each year, however. So in terms of evaluating each celeb's salary, the magazine says it looked to the financial estimates made for their Celebrity 100 power list -- and then further estimated what each actor must have earned off each movie, a figure which included what they might have culled off box-office and first-year DVD sales in addition to "up-front pay."
After comparing each stars' estimated salaries from three films with the operating income of those three movies, a great mashing of numbers into calculators ensued and Forbes returned with this list.
And should you be wondering why Stewart is two spots ahead of her Breaking Dawn co-star Pattinson, it's not because their Twilight Saga salaries are different. Forbes notes "they earn the same amount on the films." The magazine says they evaluated Stewart based on three Twilight Saga movies. Pattinson, however, has had more extensive film credits, so Forbes based his worth off Eclipse, Water for Elephants and Remember Me.