Lin-Manuel Miranda Makes Career Debut on Forbes’ Highest-Paid Actors List

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s makin’ bank…

Forbes has released its ranking of the world’s highest-paid actors, with the 40-year-old Puerto Rican actor, singer, rapper and playwright making the list for the first time in his career.

Lin-Manuel Miranda 

Miranda, who has starred in Speech & Debate, Mary Poppins Returns and The Odd Life of Timothy Green, comes in at No. 7 with earnings of $45.5 million.

Helping Miranda land on the list? Disney’s acquisition of the worldwide film rights to Miranda’s Tony Award-winning original Broadway production of Hamilton for $75 million this year.

Even with Broadway closed for the remainder of 2020, Miranda can expect another big payday next year when the film version of his other Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights comes out.

This year’s highest paid actor is Dwayne Johnson, for the second year in a row, with earning of $87.5 million.

Methodology: Earnings estimates are based on data from Nielsen, ComScore, Box Office Mojo and IMDB, as well as interviews with industry insiders. All figures are pretax and reflect earnings between June 1, 2019, and June 1, 2020; fees for agents, managers and lawyers (generally 10%, 15% and 5%, respectively) are not deducted. The list of highest-paid female actors will be out next month.

Click here to see the full list.

Anthony Gonzalez’s Disney-Pixar Film “Coco” Wins Thanksgiving Holiday Box Office

He’s nowhere near voting age, but Anthony Gonzalez is beating superheroes at the box office…

The 13-year-old Latino actor voices the character of Miguel, a young Mexican boy with musical dreams who has a wondrous adventure in the Land of the Dead in DisneyPixar’s animated film Coco, which won the Thanksgiving holiday box office.

Anthony Gonzalez

Gonzalez’s Coco earned $71.2 million at 3,987 North American sites during the Wednesday-Sunday period, while Warner Bros.DC Entertainment’s Justice League pulled in $60 million at 4,051 locations during the same timeframe in its second weekend in theaters.

Coco posted for the fourth-best Thanksgiving holiday opening ever, trailing three other Disney titles — Frozen with $93 million in 2013, Moana with $82 million in 2017 and Toy Story 3 with $80 million in 2010.

Audiences surveyed by comScore’s PostTrak gave Coco strong ratings with 66% calling it “excellent,” and another 23% rating it “very good.”  Surveys also showed 77% of viewers saying they would “definitely recommend” the movie to friends and 20% saying they would watch it again in a theater.

Coco

Coco, directed by Lee Unkrich and co-directed by Adrian Molina, is based on the traditions surrounding the Day of the Dead holiday in Mexico and centers on a 12-year-old boy who dreams of becoming a musician and explores his family history in the Land of the Dead. The studio hasn’t released a price for the movie. Disney-Pixar titles are usually budgeted in the $175 million to $200 million range.

In addition to Gonzalez, in his breakout role, Coco’s ensemble voice cast includes Benjamin Bratt, Gael Garcia Bernal, Renee Victor, Edward James Olmos, Ana Ofelia Murguia, Jaime Camil, Sofia Espinosa, Gabriel Iglesias, Cheech Marin and Lombardo Boyar.

The holiday weekend is one of the busiest moviegoing periods of the year. According to comScore, this year’s five-day Thanksgiving weekend saw total grosses his $268 million — $7.5 million better than last year’s when Moana opened with $82 million, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them taking in $65 million in its second weekend.

The strong holiday performance left the 2017 overall domestic total at $9.71 billion, or 4% behind the same point last year, according to comScore. The industry fell behind last year’s record-setting total due to downbeat performances in August and October — so much so that the much-anticipated Dec. 15 opening of Star Wars: The Last Jedi will probably not be enough to pulled this year even.