Be it Hindi cinema or Hollywood, the dialoguebaazi of the lead star is often the highlight of a film. How the hero delivers a line and how it eventually becomes a part of pop culture (or even goes viral as it happens today) is the stuff of legends. But what happens if your hero hardly has any lines to say. This is the case with this one star, known to play silent characters, and still take home crores in fees and deliver big hits.
The actor who was paid Rs 75 lakh per word spoken
After the success of The Matrix, Keanu Reeves became a huge star. Naturally, when the two sequels of the film were greenlit, Keanu commanded the highest payday in cinema history. As per reports, the actor earned around $100 million (Rs 450 crore at the time) for the joint production of the two films. Interestingly, Keanu’s character Neo had only 638 words of dialogue in the two films, which means that the actor earned $159,000 (Rs 75 lakh) per word spoken on the film.
Keanu Reeves’ astronomical salary
During his peak of stardom in the early 2000s, Keanu Reeves was the highest paid actor ever. He earned over $130 million (Rs 500 crore then) from the first Matrix film. Even today, post the success of his John Wick films, Keanu is extremely highly paid. As per E!, the actor charged $25 million for John Wick 4. This would make this roughly Rs 200-crore payday higher than the per film salaries of India’s biggest stars like Shah Rukh and Salman Khan.
When Keanu’s ‘flop’ film earned Rs 1000 crore
Keanu has tasted both success and failure at the box office. One of his career’s recent low points came in 2021 with the release of The Matrix: Resurrections. The film was heavily anticipated coming out 18 years after the original trilogy. But bad word of mouth and Covid-19 pandemic meant that it was a box office failure. Interestingly, the film still managed to earn over $150 million (roughly Rs 1200 crore) at the box office.
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