Hollywood producers looking to develop blockbuster movies at a bargain price should be going out of their way to secure the services of Kristen Stewart, Anne Hathaway and Robert Pattinson, according to a new report by Forbes. The US business magazine has published its annual list of the actors who provide the best return on an investment for the cheapest wage, and it also makes positive reading for more established actors such as Robert Downey Jr, Matt Damon, Johnny Depp and Meryl Streep.
Stewart, star of the Twilight series, sits at the top of the money tree. For every $1 she is paid, her films over the past five years have returned $55.83, Forbes reports. Closely behind in second place is Hathaway, whose films make $45.67 for every dollar of her wage, largely thanks to the $1bn success of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.
In third spot is Stewart's Twilight co-star Pattinson, whose films returned $39.43 for every $1 he was paid. He slips behind Stewart because other movies he's starred in such as period piece Water for Elephants and romantic tearjerker Remember Me have performed only adequately. Rounding out the top five are Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, with a return of $34.24 per $1 spent, and Transformers' Shia LaBeouf, whose movies made $29.40 per $1. Radcliffe and LaBeouf rank lower than the Twilighters because the films that made their names were more expensive to produce than the vampire romance saga.
The first actor over the age of 30 to make the list is Robert Downey Jr, in sixth place, who returned $18.74 per $1 for films such as the Iron Man series and Sherlock Holmes. Matt Damon, star of the Bourne films and last year's Coen brothers' remake True Grit, made back $15.83 per $1 and comes seventh, while Cate Blanchett returned $15.17 per $1 and is in eighth.
The top 10 was rounded out by Meryl Streep, the only star over 60 to make the list, with $13.54 per $1, and Johnny Depp, with $12.48 per $1.
As well as its "bargain" list, Forbes also publishes an annual rundown of the actors who provide the worst return. This year it was topped by Drew Barrymore, whose films made back a meagre 40 cents per $1 spent. Eddie Murphy was runner-up with $2.70 for every $1 he received for family-friendly comedy turkeys such as Meet Dave and Imagine That.
