"Wedding Crashers" star, Vince Vaughn, a good bargain

NEW YORK — Vince Vaughn is the best star for the buck, according to Forbes magazine.

Vaughn raked in $14.73 of gross income for studios for every dollar he was paid for in "The Break-Up," "Wedding Crashers" and "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," the magazine calculated for its special entertainment issue.

"That's because until recently, his salary was relatively low, and the films he was in, like 'Wedding Crashers' and 'The Break-Up,' had modest budgets yet did extremely well at the box office worldwide," Forbes said.

Forbes said it compiled the Ultimate Star Payback list by looking at stars' last three films that opened in at least 1,000 theaters before 2008 and were made in the past five years.

Tobey Maguire ranked No. 2 on the list, with a gross income return of $13.44 for each dollar of his pay for the "Spider-Man" sequels and "Seabiscuit." Julia Roberts was in third place with a gross income return of $13.19.

Brad Pitt ranked fourth with $12.73, followed by Naomi Watts and Matt Damon ($12.16 each), George Clooney ($11.56), Jennifer Aniston ($10.48), Hugh Jackman ($9.90) and Ben Stiller ($9.50).

The highly paid, highly bankable Will Smith — who led the July Fourth weekend with a $66 million debut for "Hancock" — ranked 21st, with a gross income return of $5.64 for every dollar spent on the big-budget superstar.

Nicole Kidman is at bottom of the list, at No. 35. Her high-paying roles in "The Golden Compass," "The Invasion" and "Bewitched" averaged only $1.01 of gross income.

Tom Cruise brought in $3.99, not surprising, given the imbalance of his high salary demands with the 2007 box-office flop "Lions for Lambs."