When you think of Canada’s most bankable movie stars, names like Ryan Reynolds, Seth Rogen and Rachel McAdams probably spring to mind.
But not one of them ranks in the Great White North’s top 10 when you crunch the data the way The 10 and 3 has.
The data visualization site has taken a crack at listing the Canadian movie stars who have brought in the most money at the box office.
And the top 10 aren’t exactly a “who’s who” of Hollywood when you look at how much money they brought in per picture for the movies in which they held the lead roles.
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10 and 3 authors Zack Gallinger and Arik Motskin looked at the numbers a few ways.
First, they listed the total box office earnings for every film an actor has appeared in.
But that list yielded some unknown names such as Daniel Cudmore (who played smaller roles in the X-Men and Twilight franchises), so that probably wasn’t the best definition of a bankable star.
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Then, The 10 and 3 looked at actors’ box office gross when they appeared in starring roles.
But that, too, wasn’t totally fair, as the list was biased in favour of actors who have been in the industry for a long time, such as Keanu Reeves or Jim Carrey.
The authors finally settled on a methodology in which they took data from The Numbers, a website that tracks box office business.
They then looked at a list of Canadian actors on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and calculated their box office earnings they made per film in which they played leading roles.
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This methodology also had a few limitations.
Box office figures likely weren’t adjusted for inflation, Motskin told Global News.
And those numbers only accounted for gross earnings at the box office — not the money movies lost against their budgets.
Taylor Kitsch, for example, starred in the 2012 film John Carter, which cost $275 million to make but only barely broke even at a worldwide box office take of just over $282 million, according to The Numbers.
Nevertheless, the list includes some names from the past that aren’t exactly household names in 2017.
And that just goes to show how long Canadians have been helping Hollywood studios rake in the cash at the movies.
Here are Canada’s most bankable stars, according to The 10 and 3:
10) Nia Vardalos – $125 million per film
9) Carrie-Anne Moss – $126 million per film
8) Brendan Fraser – $158 million per film
7) Jim Carrey – $169 million per film
6) Will Arnett – $176 million per film
5) Rick Moranis – $194 million per film
4) Taylor Kitsch – $197 million per film
3) Hayden Christensen – $226 million per film
2) Kim Cattrall – $237 million per film
1) Mike Myers – $340 million per film
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