Shia LaBeouf offers most bang for the buck

He tops the list of actors who offer the best investment return for a Hollywood film, according to Forbes. For every dollar that's paid to LaBeouf, the films he appears in generate an average of $81 in profits. It doesn't exactly hurt that LaBeouf starred in the first "Transformers" blockbuster (Paramount got him for under $5 million).

Because women typically earn less than men in Hollywood, they make up a full half of our top 10 list. Anne Hathaway is the highest-ranking woman in the No. 2 spot. For every dollar she earns studios earn $64 off of her films. Most of that payback is coming from Alice in Wonderland. The Disney 3-D film was a gigantic hit earning $1 billion at the global box office, and Hathaway earned much less than star Johnny Depp. But she also benefits from 2009's Bride Wars, which was a modest hit earning $115 million at the global box office on a low estimated budget of $30 million.

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Mark Lacter
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.
 
Mark Lacter, business writer and editor was 59
The multi-talented Mark Lacter
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