Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan is ahead of Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar in Forbes magazines World’s Highest Paid Actors 2017 list, which is led by Hollywood actor Mark Wahlberg.
The response to his last few Bollywood films like “Fan”, “Dear Zindagi”, “Raees” and “Jab Harry Met Sejal” at the box office notwithstanding, Shah Rukh still managed to rake in $38 million between June 1, 2016, and June 1, 2017 and is ranked eighth on the list, reports forbes.com.
Salman, who had one hit in “Sultan” and then a “Tubelight” that had dim earnings at the box office, was listed ninth with earnings of $37 million in the past one year.
Akshay, meanwhile, rounded off the top 10 with an income of $35.5 million. The National Award winning actor is having a golden run at the box office and has achieved success with all his films released in the past one year including “Housefull 3”, “Rustom”, “Jolly LLB 2”, “Naam Shabana” and the just released “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha”.
Wahlberg has topped the list with earnings of $68 million thanks to Hollywood films like “Transformers: The Last Knight” and the forthcoming film “Daddy’s Home 2”.
He is followed by actors Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson ($65 million) and Vin Diesel ($54.5 million) at the second and third place.
Following them are Adam Sandler ($50.5 million) at the fourth position and Jackie Chan ($49 million) rounding off the top five.
The world’s 20 highest paid actors tallied a combined $720 million between June 1, 2016, and June 1, 2017, before fees and taxes. Earnings estimates are based on data from Nielsen, ComScore, Box Office Mojo and IMDB, as well as interviews with industry insiders, forbes.com said.
Ahead of Bollywood stars at the sixth and seventh position are Hollywood stars Robert Downey Jr ($48 million) and Tom Cruise ($43 million).
This year, the three Indian stars have left behind Hollywood stars like Chris Hemsworth ($31.5 million), Tom Hanks ($31 million), Samuel L. Jackson ($30.5 million), Ryan Gosling ($29 million), Ryan Reynolds ($21.5 million), Matt Damon ($21 million), Jeremy Renner ($19 million), Chris Evans ($18 million), Chris Pratt ($17 million) and Mark Ruffalo ($13 million).