Leave it up to Forbes to calculate Hollywood's ROAC. No, that's not Return on Invested Capital, but Return on Actor Compensation. Forbes turned their uber-analytical eye to the movie biz to figure out the relationship between a film's net revenue and lead actor compensation. They took the box office sales, added DVD revenue, then subtracted the budget. Then for each actor they averaged the actor's last 3 movie's numbers, and that gives you what Forbes calls the "Star Payback" (and what I call the ROAC). Check this out:

Movies leading with Matt Damon average $29 of gross income for each $1 paid to Matt (and that doesn't include The Bourne Ultimatum, it's too recent).

Brad Pitt was right behind Matt Damon with his movies averaging $24 in GI to each $1 in compensation.

Other calculated averages include:
Vince Vaughn: $21 to $1
Johnny Depp: $21 to $1
Jennifer Aniston: $17 to $1
Angelina Jolie: $15 to $1

It is quite shocking to me that Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, and Jim Carry all rank "low" at under $10 to $1. Gladiator, Russell Crow, averages $5 to $1!

Learn more at: www.forbes.com/starpayback