LaBeouf Most Valuable Actor

Filed under: Entertainment, Sympatico — D.I.S.H. @ 11:57 am on September 1, 2010

For the second year in a row, Forbes magazine has named Shia LaBeouf the most valuable star in Hollywood. The business magazine says that when it comes to dollars spent versus dollars earned, no one can touch LaBeouf for value.

“For every $1 studios spend on the 24-year-old actor his films return an average $81 of profit,” reports the influential magazine. LaBeouf’s roles in blockbusters such as the Transformers pics and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull have made him one of the biggest names in Hollywood, while his asking price has yet to approach that of long-time stars like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise.

Second place on the list goes to Alice in Wonderland’s Anne Hathaway. Forbes says that it’s because women in Hollywood tend to earn less than their male counterparts that half of the top 10 names on the list are female.

To make the list, Forbes first picked the top 36 moneymakers in Tinsel Town who have starred in at least three movies in the past five years. The mag then compared what the stars were paid versus what their movies made at the box office to determine how much those stars are worth.

Following Hathaway to round out the top five are Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, the invincible Iron Man Robert Downey Jr., and Cate Blanchett. A surprise in sixth place was The Switch’s Jennifer Aniston.

Though Aniston’s salary doesn’t approach that of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars, pics like The Bounty Hunter do well enough to make her name a valuable addition to the marquee.

Here are the top ten actors and their return on investment numbers:

1. Shia LaBeouf ($81)
2. Anne Hathaway ($64)
3. Daniel Radcliffe ($61)
4. Robert Downey Jr. ($33)
5. Cate Blanchett ($27)
6. Jennifer Aniston ($21)
7. Meryl Streep ($21)
8. Johnny Depp ($18)
9. Nicolas Cage ($17)
10. Sarah Jessica Parker ($17)

(Photo by PR Photos)