Mark Wahlberg has been named by Forbes as the highest paid male actor in Hollywood, earning an estimated $68m in the last 12 months.
The Boston-born actor earned the top spot thanks to big pay cheques for Transformers: The Last Knight (which grossed over $600m in the box office worldwide, in spite of negative reviews) and the forthcoming Daddy's Home 2.
Wahlberg dethroned Dwayne Johnson in the process, who led the list last year. Johnson’s biggest project in 2017 was Baywatch, co-starring Zac Efron, and he also has the upcoming Jumanji sequel in the pipeline. His second place in the list is also thanks to the success of his HBO show Ballers. Overall, he still earned $50 million more than his 2016 total.
Johnson also starred in The Fate of the Furious this year, and it was his co-star Vin Diesel who earned the third highest amount of any actor in the last 12 months. Diesel saw his earnings leap 55% thanks to pay days from his roles in F8 as well as xXx: The Return of Xander Cage and Marvel's hit sequel Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Rounding out the top 5 is Adam Sandler (No. 4; $50.5 million), who has a lucrative deal going at Netflix, and Jackie Chan (No. 5; $49 million), who continues to make bank in China.
The figures do lay bare the disturbing fact of Hollywood’s gender pay gap. Last week, it was revealed that at $26 million, Emma Stone was the highest paid actress of the year. This makes her rank below all of the top ten highest paid Hollywood/Bollywood actors of 2017, which can be seen below (she would in fact rank as only the 15th highest earner overall):
10. Akshay Kumar - $35.5m
9. Salman Khan - $37m
8. Shah Rukh Khan - $38m
7. Tom Cruise - $43m
6. Robert Downey Jr. - $48m
5. Jackie Chan - $49m
4. Adam Sandler - $50.5m
3. Vin Diesel - $54.5m
2. Dwayne Johnson - $65m
1. Mark Wahlberg - $68m
