Why Hollywood’s guaranteed paydays for stars like Dwayne Johnson are bad bets now

Rather than making a summer splash, Disney’s live-action Moana remake floundered at the box office.

Opening with US$43 million (S$55.5 million) in North America against a US$250 million production budget, the film is already projected to lose the studio between US$100 million and US$125 million, according to Deadline.

It is also a disappointing outcome for Dwayne Johnson, who is reprising his role as the demigod Maui from the animated hits Moana (2016) and Moana 2 (2024), as it extends a streak of commercial flops for one of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars. The 54-year-old was reportedly paid nearly US$30 million as star and producer for the latest Moana. 

The biggest takeaway is not that the American actor is mired in a slump, but that Hollywood’s compensation structures have not fully adjusted to a reality where star power is less predictive of box-office performance. If studios want to rein in blockbuster budgets and mitigate risk, they should stop paying actors as if success is guaranteed and start rewarding them when they actually deliver.

Johnson has long lived up to the billing as one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars. Between intellectual property franchises (Fast & Furious and Jumanji) and original tentpoles (Skyscraper and San Andreas), his films had been reliable box-office draws, and his salaries consistently reflected it.

Since 2016, Johnson has been Hollywood’s highest earner four times, per Forbes. In that time, no other actor has topped the list more than once.

But his recent output has delivered more misses than hits. In 2022, Black Adam was supposed to launch a new franchise within the DC Extended Universe; instead, the film underperformed, and Warner Bros elected to start from scratch with writer-director James Gunn at the helm of a new superhero slate.

The Smashing Machine (2025) was Johnson’s bid for awards-season credibility, but the sports biopic failed to resonate commercially or with Academy voters.

Red One was a critically panned Christmas comedy in 2024 that grossed US$181.8 million worldwide against a US$250 million budget. For that role, Johnson earned an estimated US$50 million, which is believed to be the highest upfront payment for a single movie in Hollywood history.

His situation is notable because he commands some of the industry’s largest upfront paydays. But his recent struggles raise the question of whether those guarantees still make sense when the economics of movie stardom have shifted.

Profit-sharing in streaming era

Established franchises and intellectual property are increasingly important drivers of consumer demand for tentpoles, while low-budget 2026 breakouts such as Obsession and Backrooms can deliver blockbuster-sized returns through word of mouth and savvy marketing rather than marquee names.

In other words, the industry’s old assumption that major stars are the biggest factor in determining whether a movie is a hit has become harder to justify.

Which brings us to back-end participation – the practice of paying stars a share of a film’s profits rather than all of their compensation upfront. This is not a new idea. Hollywood stars have used it for decades to share in a film’s profits. But the streaming era has complicated that model by disrupting the traditional link between a movie’s success and an actor’s compensation.

Even when these projects receive a theatrical release, streamers have paid A-list talent upfront without the same performance-based incentives. In these cases, compensation rewards reputation without accounting for whether that reputation translates into audience demand on a given project.

“There is now a misalignment of incentives,” entertainment lawyer Marc Simon said in a 2022 interview with TheWrap. “A fair traditional contingent compensation model aligns the interests of the financial backers and everyone invested in the creation of content. It has to be a success to be of economic benefit. Paying upfront dilutes the incentive and, ultimately, content creation is harmed.”

Recent history shows why the alternative remains attractive. Tom Cruise took a (relatively) modest US$13 million upfront for Top Gun: Maverick in exchange for a cut of the box office – and ended up making at least US$100 million when the sequel became the biggest hit of 2022.

Similarly, Barbie (2023) star Margot Robbie traded a standard fee for back-end participation that turned her US$12.5 million salary into roughly US$50 million.

For studios, the appeal of guaranteed paydays is clear. They provide certainty for how much they pay actors while allowing them to avoid sharing as much revenue if a film becomes a hit. But with enough flops on the ledger, this becomes less of a strategy than a gamble.

Johnson has another blockbuster on the way in 2026, Jumanji: Open World, and considering his larger filmography, it is not a stretch to assume that more high-profile (and high-paying) projects will follow. Massive guarantees should not be the default for stars of this stature. Future compensation packages that rely more heavily on back-end participation do not have to be viewed by actors as pay cuts. It is a bet on themselves.

If Johnson remains one of Hollywood’s biggest draws – and his recent flops prove to be temporary setbacks – he will be rewarded accordingly. But if he no longer can attract audiences on his own, studios do not have to be the only ones absorbing the risk. BLOOMBERG