The Highest Grossing Actors of 2014
This post spawned from a curious desire to know what actor appeared in the highest grossing films of the year. An extremely liberal definition of "actor" and “appearance” was used: cameos and voice roles both count. So, basically, all a person has to do is actually appear in (or speak in) a movie and that movie’s worldwide box office numbers count toward that person's total.
Some projections had to be used. ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1’ is still earning money, so its final tally is based partially on the final numbers of its predecessor, ‘Catching Fire.’ (‘Mockingjay’ will not match the numbers of ‘Catching Fire,’ so we estimated slightly lower.) Also, ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies’ hasn’t been released yet, so the numbers from its predecessor, ‘The Desolation of Smaug’ were used. We also had to project for three Benedict Cumberbatch movies (including ‘The Hobbit’), and he fell just short of the top 11. (And, yes, there is a chance that an uncredited extra who appeared in 20 movies this year should be on this list, but there’s no real way of knowing.)
So, again, using these very liberal guidelines, here are your biggest box office draws of 2014 (and the results might surprise you).
11. Chris Pratt
‘The LEGO Movie’ + ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ = $1.24 billion
10. Djimon Hounsou
‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ + ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ = $1.39 billion
9. Jennifer Lawrence
‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ + ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1’ = $1.40 billion
8. Jonah Hill
‘The LEGO Movie’ + ’22 Jump Street’ + ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ = $1.42 billion
7. Ian McKellen
‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ + ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ = $1.65 billion
6. Lee Pace
‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ + ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ = $1.67 billion
5. Cate Blanchett
‘The Monuments Men’ + ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2,’ ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies’ = $1.67 billion
4. Stanley Tucci
‘Mr. Peabody and Sherman’ + ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ + ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1’ = $2.01 billion
3. Kelsey Grammer
‘Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return’ + ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ + ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ + ‘The Expendables 3’ + ‘Reach Me’ = $2.06 billion
2. T.J. Miller
‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ + ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ + ‘Big Hero 6’ = $2.11 billion
1. Stan Lee
‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ + ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2‘ + ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ + ‘Big Hero 6’ = $2.59 billion
Mike Ryan has written for The Huffington Post, Wired, Vanity Fair and GQ. He is the senior editor of ScreenCrush. You can contact him directly on Twitter.