Bollywood Enters Top 10 Of World's Highest Paid Actors

The much awaited Forbes’ list of highest paid actors in the world is out now, and it’s a good news for Bollywood fans. While Mark Wahlberg has topped the list this year, three Indian actors find place in the top 10. While Shah Rukh Khan is at number 8, Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar follow at number 9 and 10 respectively. According to Forbes, while SRK earned $38 million (Rs 243.50 cr), Salman made $37 million (Rs 237 cr) and Akshay took home $35.5 million (Rs 227.5 cr).

These three actors were expected to be in the list as they are the highest earners in the world’s biggest film industry in terms of numbers of films produced every year. However, Aamir Khan’s absence from the list is surprising whose Dangal has broken the worldwide collection records for any Indian film. It collected over Rs 2000 cr ($312 million) in China alone.

The magazine says it has collected the data over a period of 12 months starting from June 1, 2016. Dangal released on December 23, 2016 and most of its earning came within the specified period.

Mark Wahlberg is surprisingly the highest earning actor in the world with $68 million kitty. That’s almost 79% more income than Shah Rukh Khan. His film Transformers: The Last Knight didn’t do well at the box office, but his fixed remuneration took him to the top. He got better of Hollywood’s new superstar Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson who registered an earning of $65 million. Johnson topped the list in 2016.

Vin Diesel ($54.5 million), Adam Sandler ($50.5 million) and Jackie Chan ($49 million) were adjudged 3rd, 4th and 5th on this list. Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr and Tom Cruise came 6th and 7th before Indian actors took over the list.

Actors like Chris Hemsworth, Samuel Jackson and Tom Hanks failed to surpass the Bollywood superpowers in this list that has a busy actor like Mark Ruffalo at number 20.

La La Land star Emma Stone leads the race of the highest paid actresses in the world, but her earning of $26 million is nowhere close to the highest paid actors. She is closely followed by Jennifer Aniston with $25.5 million and Jennifer Lawrence with $24 million. This shows how big the gender pay gap is in Hollywood.

Deepika Padukone - who was 10th highest paid actress in 2016 - failed to make the cut this year.