Adam Sandler has made no secret of the fact that his Happy Madison comedies, no matter how unappealing or unfunny they may be, are basically just excuses to take vacations with his friends. Fortunately for the studios, they also happen to make a ton of money (at least they have in the past), and that’s why the Blended star is able to keep pumping out recycled jokes much to the delight of his loyal fans. As for the people who don’t necessarily enjoy the Grown Ups franchise or whichever awful accent Sandler is using in his next film, well, we’ll just have to keep ignoring him.
The good news for the haters is that Forbes has released its annual list of the most overpaid actors in Hollywood, and for the second year in a row, it’s Sandler taking the top honor over a somewhat surprising list of superstars.
1. Adam Sandler: returns $3.20 for every $1 paid.
2. Johnny Depp: returns $4.10 for every $1 paid.
3. Ben Stiller: returns $4.80 for every $1 paid.
4. Ryan Reynolds: returns $4.90 for every $1 paid.
5. Tom Hanks: returns $5.20 for every $1 paid.
6. Will Ferrell: returns $6.60 for every $1 paid.
7. Channing Tatum: returns $6.70 for every $1 paid.
8. Denzel Washington: returns $6.90 for every $1 paid.
9. Sandra Bullock: returns $9 for every $1 paid.
10. Ben Affleck: returns $9.37 for every $1 paid. (Via Variety)
So how exactly does Forbes gather this information and declare someone like Sandler an overpriced king of the duds?
We look at the last three films each actor starred in before June 2014, since that was the end of our time frame for the Celeb 100. We don’t include animated films or movies where the actor appears in a cameo or a very small role, or movies that were released on fewer than 2,000 screens.
We then look at the budget and revenue for each film (using numbers from Box Office Mojo and other sources) to come up with operating income. We add together the total compensation for each star on the three movies and the operating income from each movie and then divide to come up with the final return on investment number. (Via Forbes)
This isn’t really bad news for Sandler, because, again, he knows damn well what he’s doing each time he casts his old SNL buddies to surround him for another dumb story. He also has that new Netflix deal paying him a pretty penny to produce four original films for the streaming service, and there are no box office receipts to factor in for those. All we’ll have to judge him on are Netflix reviews, which have basically become the movie world’s YouTube comments section.