Jim Carrey has been making audiences laugh for several decades now, and this is thanks to those movies that rank as his successes.
From the movie that put him firmly on the Hollywood map, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, to those later pieces of comedy gold that fans still remember, including Bruce Almighty and Mr Popper's Penguins, he has done much to make us smile.
Carrey has amassed a $150 million net worth thanks to the success he has found on the screen, and his movies have grossed nearly $5 billion at the box office. Admittedly, not every movie Carrey has starred in has been a hit. The Majestic tanked at the box office, and so too did Dark Crimes, but overall, the actor has had a pretty good track record of successful movies thus far.
But which movie role earned Jim Carrey the most money? The answer might surprise you, as his earnings don't always equate to the box office totals that his movies have garnered.
Big Earners At The Box Office
From the movies Carrey has starred in, Bruce Almighty still ranks as the biggest earner in terms of box office takings, with a total of $484 million. For this role, Carrey earned $25 million.
Carrey's second-highest movie in terms of receipts was The Mask, making a whopping $351 at the box office. However, Carrey didn't earn as much as you might imagine for his role in the movie. While it was a mega-hit and earned the actor a lot of acclaim, he was only paid $350, 000 for this role, which is a small change when compared to what many Hollywood stars were earning at the time. Of course, this was in 1994 when Carrey wasn't yet the box office draw that he later became, so this is understandable.
From a box office perspective, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Batman Forever, and A Christmas Carol were three other high earners, but again, the success of these movies didn't equate to what Carrey was paid for his roles in them. The same applies to the recent Sonic The Hedgehog movie, which grossed more than $300 million worldwide but which hasn't been categorized as one of Carrey's highest-paid roles.
Surprisingly, the movie that Carrey has reportedly been paid the most for is one that stands at the bottom end of a top 10 list of the actor's highest-grossing films, according to Radiox.
That movie is Yes Man.
Carrey's Biggest Payday
Yes Man isn't one of Jim Carrey's best movies. It's not as funny as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective or Liar Liar, and in terms of box office takings, it is far removed from Bruce Almighty. In terms of receipts, it made $223 million worldwide, which is hardly low earnings, but still well below the $484 million of Carrey's biggest box office earner.
However, this is the movie that has thus far earned Carrey the biggest payday of his career.
Despite starring in a movie where is supposed to say 'yes' to everything, Carrey actually said 'no' to an upfront salary. According to The Telegraph, the actor refused the standard $20 million he was generally earning at the time and instead asked for 36.2% of the movie's back-end profits. He was banking on it being a success, and thankfully, his gamble paid off. While not the highest box office earner of his career, it still earned a sizeable amount of money, and Carrey was paid $32 million as a consequence.
There is now a trend in Hollywood where big stars do ask for a share of the profits in their contract instead of an upfront salary, as they are sometimes destined to earn more. Tom Cruise, for example, earned $100 million for War Of The Worlds, after foregoing his salary for 20% of the movie's profits. Carrey followed suit when deciding to star in Yes Man, so he is lucky that it did well.
Carrey is now in a fortunate position where he is able to negotiate a share of the box office takings, although the actor doesn't always make movies for earnings alone. His lowest-grossing movie is I Love You Phillip Morris, which made only $20 million worldwide. Carrey earned only $200, 000, but as he explained in an interview with Parade Magazine, he agreed to take a pay cut because "I'm here to do extreme and interesting things...There are very few scripts that I would come across that I would pay to do and this was one of them."
Still, for the sake of Carrey's personal fortune, let's hope he continues to make wise choices within his career. While he is currently able to pick personal projects as well as guaranteed money earners, we don't want to see him lose out because of such critical and commercial misfires as Dark Crimes, which made a pitiful $23 million at the box office.
