Are Jen Aniston & Angelina Jolie Worth Their Pay?

Or are they just making dough for magazine publishers?

Settle a bet between friends: I say Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston are stars just in the tabloids. My friend says they're A-listers who actually earn their money. Discuss.
—Baba, New York

No doubt Jolie sells tabloids. See? Watch: Jolie! Jolie! Homewrecker! Sexy lady! Savior to every poor child in the Eastern Hemisphere! And oh, look! There's poor Jennifer Aniston looking bodacious, but still somehow so alone and forlorn! There. I just raked in like 20,000 more hits.

But does that translate into ticket sales? Is Aniston worth her salary? What about Jolie, with her reported eight-figure paychecks? Let's see...

Well, Jolie reportedly earned $15 million for the film Wanted in 2008, out of a total budget of $75 million. The film has since made $339 million worldwide, including more than $117 million in its first two weeks; that's considered, in the words of Brandon Gray of Box Office Mojo, "solid." That said, Jolie's Oscar-bait flick, Changeling, underperformed. To conclude, Jolie is bankable, but only, as Gray has put it, "in action and thriller movies." In other words, as long as Jolie can run around in a catsuit or something, audiences—male audiences—will tolerate her. Female audiences? Not so much.

How about Aniston? Well, first, her salary comes nowhere close to Jolie's, making it much easier to get a return on her investment: The same year that Jolie was asking for $15 million, Aniston earned a modest $8 million for Marley & Me. During its four-day opening weekend, it earned $50.7 million, "a new high for actors Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson in lead roles," Gray notes. The movie now ranks as the third-highest-grossing dog movie on record, with a worldwide take of nearly $243 million. As for Aniston's other recent films, yes, Love Happens was a dud, but The Bounty Hunter, despite its terrible reviews, "is doing OK," Gray tells me.

"Averaged out, Aniston is probably more bankable than Jolie, but Aniston's strong suit is romantic comedies," Gray says. "Aniston is no Sandra Bullock, but she's up there. When she's in a proper studio picture, her box office is pretty good."

So are these ladies worth their cash? It all depends on whether they're in their natural habitat, as a zoologist might say. For Aniston, it's the rom-com, and for Jolie, it's catsuit pictures—well-budgeted catsuit pictures.