Highest Grossing Actor of All Time!

Cafe Society
1

I’m guessing it would be Alan Rickman or John Ratzenberger.

No, really. Follow with me here. Rickman has been in every Harry Potter movie, plus a few others that made money (Die Hard, Robin Hood, etc) while Ratzenberger has been in every singe Pixar movie to date (and has a part in, at least, the next one coming out: Cars 2).

So I think it’s close: US totals, I think, would favor Ratzenberger and Worldwide totals would favor Rickman. I think. I’m really too lazy to figure it all out.

Any other actors you can think of that even come close to these two?

(and even if someone was in both Titanic and Avatar, I don’t think they’d be close to these two guys)

2

Actually, it’s Frank Welker.

Zev Steinhardt

3

Harris Glenn Milstead, surely.

4

I’ve got to believe they’re throwing TV numbers into that somehow, which I don’t want. Just movies.

And Samuel Jackson at number two?!? I’m thinking they need to update their numbers. I’m not buying it. He was only in, what, three Star Wars movies (as his big money movies)? And…The Incredibles…almost forgot about that one.

5

Here’s the Top 10:



  	  	Name 	Movies 	Total Box Office 	  	Average
1 	  	Frank Welker 	93 	$5,724,519,102 	  	$61,553,969
2 	  	Samuel L. Jackson 	82 	$4,911,613,885 	  	$59,897,730
3 	  	Tom Hanks 	43 	$4,408,353,320 	  	$102,519,845
4 	  	John Ratzenberger 	31 	$3,722,836,596 	  	$120,091,503
5 	  	Eddie Murphy 	36 	$3,710,539,654 	  	$103,070,546
6 	  	Harrison Ford 	40 	$3,685,688,633 	  	$92,142,216
7 	  	Tom Cruise 	35 	$3,354,684,263 	  	$95,848,122
8 	  	Jack Angel 	28 	$3,317,891,129 	  	$118,496,112
9 	  	Morgan Freeman 	51 	$3,266,186,791 	  	$64,042,878
10 	  	Robin Williams 	58 	$3,234,364,996 	  	$55,764,914

Your guess of Ratzinberger wasn’t bad (he’s #4). Rickman is on the list at #15.

Zev Steinhardt

6

Divine?

I don’t get it…

7

Warwick Davis would probably be on the short list (no pun intended). He’s been in the Harry Potter movies, at least a couple of the Star Wars movies, and some other big budget productions.

If Christopher Lee’s post 2000 work only were counted he’d be on the list, but he’s done so many hundreds of low-budget/low-gross projects in the past it would take him way down.

ETA: Warwick Davis is #13 on the list that Zev posted.

8

(joke explainer) It depends on your definition of grossing… (/joke explainer)

9

Go to the site and click on Welker’s name. It will show you the 93 movies he’s done. There are no TV shows (such as Animaniacs) in there.

Jackson was in 10 movies with over $100M – many of which were actually $300M+
Zev Steinhardt

10

Yeah, those look old. This site here shows Toy Story 3 and Finding Nemo at almost 2 billion by themselves. The other 8 Pixar movies had to more than equal that.

11

Hugo Weaving.

LOTR trilogy= $2.9 billion
The Matrix trilogy= $1.63 billion
Transformers movies= $1.54 billion

Plus an additional $800 million for his other big (but not as massive) movies , gives a total of just under $6.9 billion. (Which blows away the previously linked Frank Welker.)

And just this summer he’ll be in the 3rd Transformers as well as Captain America, (not to mention the upcoming Hobbit films) so that total is going to get much larger soon.
Wait, do you mean total gross, or just US? The figures I posted are the worldwide box office totals.

Wow, looking at the link Zev posted, his totals are even higher than that! $7.2 billion total for worldwide box office!

12

I have to admit, there are some movies on his list I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years!

-Raiders of the Lost Ark
-Transformers
-The Little Mermaid

Nice!

13

That site is using Worldwide gross. The site I linked to uses US Gross for that list (although they have worldwide gross available).

Zev Steinhardt

14

I was thinking about LOTR, but I didn’t know he was in the Transformers movies as well…never seen 'em, never will!

15

Samuel L. was in *Jurassic Park *as well. I don’t know how much that one made but I’m guessing it was quite a bit.

16

If you adjusted for inflation, would it be character actor Ward Bond? He was in a lot of movies from the late 1930s to 1950s. Apparently he was in the most number of movies nominated for Academy Awards with 11. Which doesn’t necessarily translate to sales but the Academy Awards likes movies that are reasonably successful at the box ofhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Bondfice.

17

Surely it’s whoever recorded the Wilhelm scream.

18

At over 200 movies, I’m sure the poor sap wishes he got some kind of residuals.

19

Hugo Weaving’s worldwide gross is $7.2, while Frank Welker comes in at $11.2 (when comparing apples to apples).

20

Here’s the top thirty all time grossing actors according to Box Office Mojo:

Tom Hanks $3,977.3
Eddie Murphy $3,713.9
Harrison Ford $3,455.6
Robin Williams $2,962.6
Morgan Freeman $2,880.6
Tom Cruise $2,871.8
Samuel L. Jackson $2,812.9
Bruce Willis $2,728.6
Cameron Diaz $2,663.7
Johnny Depp $2,596.6
Will Smith $2,520.9
Julia Roberts $2,503.3
Robert DeNiro $2,465.2
John Travolta $2,351.0
Jim Carrey $2,339.4
Matt Damon $2,305.3
Ben Stiller $2,288.8
Orlando Bloom $2,279.6
Mike Myers $2,211.4
Nicolas Cage $2,133.1
Sigourney Weaver $2,103.8
Michael Caine $2,075.9
Mel Gibson $2,065.6
Emma Watson $2,058.7
Gary Oldman $2,055.0
Kathy Bates $2,049.4
Brad Pitt $2,035.0
Ian McKellen $2,009.8
Rupert Grint $2,008.2
Daniel Radcliffe $2,007.9

(All figures are in millions. They don’t count cameo or voice roles.)