
Top-earning actor
Richard Pryor
$4,000,000
Fee for Superman IIIDeal
About $12.9 million in 2025 dollars
$4 million, and the same year a five-year, $40 million deal with Columbia.
Forbes Starts Counting · 1980s

Top-earning actor
$4,000,000
Fee for Superman IIIDeal
About $12.9 million in 2025 dollars
$4 million, and the same year a five-year, $40 million deal with Columbia.

Top-earning actress
≈ $1,500,000
Fee for Sahara, $1–1.5MEstimate
About $4.8 million in 2025 dollars
At 17, reportedly paid $1 million or $1.5 million for Sahara.
By U.S. and Canadian box-office gross

$253 million

$108 million

$92.9 million
Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.