With the coronavirus shutdown pushing us toward The Greatest Depression and leaving many of us wondering how we will manage our finances, the days when people paid huge amounts of money for celebrity memorabilia seem like something from the forgotten past.

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However, we can still cast our minds back to those distant times when people went on to eBay to place bids for a half eaten sandwich that Miley Cyrus might have gotten her teeth into, or one of Harry Styles’ old sweaty shirts.

So to remind us all that a world existed before the virus, here are the 10 maddest celebrity items people have paid for.

10 John Lennon’s toilet

John Lennon was a pathological liar, wife beater, and genuine music legend, both for The Beatles era and his solo career, with the celebrity sing-a-long to his song Imagine already giving us one of the cringiest moments of the coronavirus era. When Lennon sang “Imagine no possessions” from his luxury mansion it might have been because he had seen into the future and learned that one day someone would pay $11,773 for one of his old toilets. This very expensive toilet had been at the Tittenhurst Park home that Lennon and Yoko Ono lived in from 1969 until 1972 and was one that Lennon had given to his builder to use “as a plant pot” when he got a new one installed.

The auction where this bizarre 2010 sale took place was held at the Paul McCartney Auditorium in Liverpool and the person who paid almost ten times the expected price for a used . . . ahem . . . ’john’ kept his identity a secret. We cannot really blame him for that.^[1]

9 Kiss coffins

The only thing that Kiss lead singer Gene Simmons loves more than rock ‘n’ roll is money and that lust for lucre has helped to make his band the Krusty the Clown of rock music – willing to put their name to the tackiest merchandise in the world if it keeps the cash rolling in.

They took things to a whole new low – literally – back in 2001 though, when they launched the Kiss Kasket. This was a make of coffin that was covered in pictures of the group members as well as the band logo and cost $3,300. As if selling band branded coffins was not scraping the barrel enough they also offered urns that Kiss fanatics could have their ashes stored in.

At the launch, Simmons said that although he loved life, the Kiss Kasket “makes the alternative look pretty damn good” and the ads suggested people who had bought one and then failed to die could use it as a drinks cooler while they waited. Among those who have gone to the next world in a Kiss Kasket are Pantera guitarist ‘Dimebag’ Darrell.^[2]

8 Elvis Presley’s hair

The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll Elvis Presley had an iconic haircut. The ducktail and quiff that he rocked much defined the 1950s, but even that does not explain why anyone would want to pay money to own some of his old, dead hair. Back in November 2002, a man who used to cut the hair of The King – Homer Gilleland – put a collection of clippings he had kept for decades on sale at an auction in Illinois.

You might think that keeping someone else’s hair for that long is a bit weird and you would be right. It would be creepy if it was the hair of an ex girlfriend or boyfriend and you wanted it so you could stroke it and cry every night, but holding on to it to sell is not really any better. Then again, BUYING another person’s hair is weird too, so the anonymous buyer does not look great here either. The clippings came complete with letters from Gilleland, expert in Presley memorabilia John W Heath and someone called John Reznikoff who is apparently a respected authority when it comes to collecting hair (!) The final sale price of $115,120 made it the most expensive hair ever sold at auction.^[3]

7 Russell Crowe’s jockstrap

Back when he starred in Gladiator in 1999, Australian Russell Crowe was a sex symbol and lots of women might have been willing to bid for his used jockstrap, but by 2018 you would expect there to have been fewer takers. That was when the piece of sweaty protection was put up for sale as part of a ‘divorce auction’ of his belongings that the actor organized. The jockstrap for sale was one Crowe wore during the filming of Cinderella Man in 2004, although we have to hope that it had been washed during the 14-year gap.

Crowe was expecting to get offers of between $500 and $600 for it – which might seem a bit egotistical, but it actually went for $7,000 so if anything he was selling himself short. The buyer was an English television personality, who later claimed that he bought it for donation to a Blockbuster video store that was struggling for money (ya think?!) so that they could use it as memorabilia to attract customers. Whether they want the sort of customers who would be attracted by it is another matter.^[4]

6 Justin Timberlake’s French toast

Justin Timberlake has lots of fans, both from his days with NSYNC and his solo music and movie career and one of them was passionate enough about the man nicknamed ‘trouser snake’ to pay over $1000 for a couple of slices of French toast that he had come into contact with.

The toast was made for the star during an early morning interview he gave to the radio station Z-100 back in 2000, but the chef managed to burn it and Timberlake decided not to bother. After the interview, the DJ took the leftover toast and put it straight onto eBay, showing the true US spirit of enterprise.

A bidding war then took place over the stale toast, and given that Timberlake was still deep in his boy-band period at the time it is not surprising that the person who most badly wanted his uneaten breakfast was a 19-year-old fan of NSYNC called Kathy Summers. Speaking to the media after claiming her ‘prize’, Summer said: “I’ll probably freeze dry it, then seal it . . . then put it on my dresser.” NSYNC were also toast not long after this heartwarming story, splitting in 2002 as Timberlake went solo.^[5]

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5 Jennifer Lawrence’s sports bra

Jennifer Lawrence rose to fame by playing Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games movie trilogy, but it seems many of her fans are not so much hungry as thirsty – particularly the ones who bid for one of her used sports bras at an auction in 2013. The sports bra was one of several pieces that went on sale at an auction house in Los Angeles, with all of the clothes being ones she had worn during the filming of the movie Silver Linings Playbook.

The auction took place not long after she had won the first of her Oscars so that might explain the frenzied bidding or it could just be that a lot of dudes around the world had money to burn and were a bit too keen to own one of her bras. The total sum that was raised by the sale of the clothes was $12,000 and the sports bra accounted for a cool $3,175 of it. The owner of the auction house said afterwards that global bidding had been “furious” and the people who lost out on the bra were probably furious too. Surely finding a girlfriend would be a cheaper option for these guys.^[6]

4 William Shatner’s kidney stone

We know that Star Trek fans are pretty obsessive about everything connected with the show, so when Captain Kirk sold his kidney stone on eBay the most amazing thing about it was not the money it made but the fact that the buyer was no sci-fi geek. Shatner chose to put the stone onto the site in 2006 to help raise cash for the homelessness charity Habitat for Humanity, after falling ill with it the previous fall while he was filming Boston Legal.

When he put the huge stone up for sale he also included other pieces of surgical equipment like the string and stint that helped him pass it – just for those who did not find the stone itself gross enough. Plenty of people were willing to bid for a – literal – piece of Shatner though, with the whole lot eventually selling for $25,000. Lots of dedicated trekkers must have been mad as hell that night though, as none of them ended up with the precious stone. The buyer who boldly went where no man has gone before was an online casino called Golden Palace, who added it to other collectables that can be viewed on their website, such as a toasted cheese sandwich with the Virgin Mary’s image on it.^[7]

3 Scarlett Johansson’s used tissue

Just in case you thought it could not get any more disgusting than buying a kidney stone, someone actually paid thousands of dollars for a tissue that Marvel star Scarlett Johansson once sneezed into. This moment of snotty behavior came long before Scarlett was cast as Black Widow in the MCU, as it followed an appearance on the Tonight show when she was promoting terrible 2008 superhero movie The Spirit. During the show she complained about having a cold and Jay Leno gave her a tissue that she blew into a couple of times.

This left it covered in both lipstick and nasal fluid, which would make most people want to get it in the nearest bin. Instead the star signed it and put it up for sale on eBay to try and raise money for a charity called Harvest. It worked too, possibly because there were lots of fans who were hoping to use it to clone her, Sheldon Cooper style. The eventual winner had to cough up $5,300 to get his hands on it (yes we are assuming it was a man). He may be having the last laugh though, as he sits at home with his Hollywood star clone wife.^[8]

2 Truman Capote’s ashes

The writer of Breakfast at Tiffany’s was someone who enjoyed being famous and the center of attention so he might not have minded people bidding huge amounts of money to own his ashes. They went up for sale at auction two years ago and the buyer paid $43,750 for his or her ghoulish prize. Capote actually died all the way back in 1984 and his ashes had been kept by one of his best friends – the wife of Johnny Carson, the Tonight Show legend. She claimed that having them near to her was a comfort, but after she died in 2017, the decision was made to put them up for sale.

The president of Julien’s Auctions Darren Julien said afterwards that “with some celebrities this wouldn’t be tasteful” (no kidding), but added that he was completely certain that it was what Capote would have wanted. The starting price for the ashes was $2,000 and it does seem likely that the flamboyant author would have been delighted to have brought in more than twenty times that much money.^[9]

1 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s breath

“Every breath you take”, The Police sang, but the next line was not “I will bottle and sell on eBay.” That is what happened to political activists and part-time actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie during 2005, in the first . . . um . . . breath of their romance. At the premiere of the movie Mr and Mrs Smith on June 7th that year, Joe Wilson and his partner in crime Pam DuMond, who call themselves the Celebrity Air Collection Squad lay in wait for passing stars. As Jolie and Pitt walked by on the red carpet they scooped up some of the air into a jar and sealed it shut.

At this point you might be thinking: “what if they were both holding their breath at that moment?” or “what if one of them farted before the jar was sealed?” It is possible that a Hollywood star fart in a jar would be worth more than basic breath though, so Wilson and DuMond may have missed a trick by not labeling it as that. As it was, they made sure to call it ‘Celebrity Air’ and point out that it might not be that of Pitt or Jolie at all so that they were within eBay rules about not selling something when its existence cannot be proved.^[10]

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You get paid royalties if you own the rights to something, whether that’s a physical asset, a song, even a name, and someone else wants to use it commercially. If someone else is making money off of something that’s yours, you are probably owed money for it. But it’s not as cut and dry as it sounds and sometimes there are some very bizarre rules over what does and doesn’t qualify for royalties. There are many people out there paying or get paid for very unexpected reasons.

10. Finnish Cabbies Have to Pay Royalties for Songs on Their Radios

Cab drivers exist in just about every city in the world. If a place is big enough people will always need to get around so someone can always make a living by driving them. But there are plenty of rules and regulations about how this has to work and those rules can vary from one place to another.

Finland has one of the most obscure and unusual rules that cabbies have to abide by. They are required to pay royalties for the songs that play in their cabs because, strictly speaking, they make money while music is playing in the car. 

A court ruling in 2002 applied to all cabbies in the country. If they turn on the radio in the presence of a customer, then they need to pay for the music that plays. Music in a cab is a public performance at that point, and subject to such fees.

It wasn’t a ton of money and it wasn’t like the cabbies had to write down what song played when. Instead, they were tasked with paying a yearly fee of just £14 to the Finnish Composers’ Copyright Society. Cabbies are, of course, free to keep the radio off and not pay anything.

9. Alice Cooper Pays His Band Royalties to Use The Name

Alice Cooper spent decades as an icon of rock. One of the earliest performers to blend horror esthetic and showmanship with his music he’s something of a founder of the whole “shock rock” genre which led to acts like Marilyn Manson, Slipknot and Gwar among many others. He’s a trailblazer is what he is. He also pays for his name.

Cooper was born Vincent Damon Furnier though he legally changed his name to Alice Cooper in 1975. The story of the name was shared by Cooper in a book in which he claimed the story of a medium using a Ouija board to spell it out, which is the popular myth, was untrue. Instead, it was just a random name that popped into his head that he felt would conjure confusing imagery for fans because the band was all men. The name was not his; it was the band’s.

As the frontman, he became known as Alice Cooper even though that wasn’t precisely the intent. But he went with it and, as a result, pays yearly royalties to the rest of the band to use the name because it belonged to all of them. 

8. Everyone Who Uses HDMI Pays Royalties for the Technology

When it comes to plugging in video peripherals these days, you need to use an HDMI cable. It’s what DVD, Blu-ray, video game consoles and everything else use and it gives you some high-quality video and audio. It’s also proprietary, and that means people pay royalties to one company to use it. 

The name HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, which is trademarked. Anyone who wants to use HDMI has to pay a yearly fee to HDMI for adopting it. That was a $10,000 base fee plus $0.15 per unit sold unless they clearly use the HDMI logo, then the price drops to a nickel. 

If a company makes less than 10,000 units of whatever they’re selling, they can opt for a different plan to save some money. But whatever the case, if it’s your Xbox or just a cable you pick up loose, if it says HDMI on it, that company paid a royalty fee.  

7. Climbers Have to Pay Royalties to Nepal to Climb Everest

If you’re the adventurous type, you may have an incline to one day live the ultimate adventure and climb Mount Everest. And why not, it’s a big accomplishment. It’s also not very cheap.

If you’re not a Nepalese citizen, the government of Nepal is going to need you to pay royalties to climb their mountain. This varies by season but if you decide to go up in the Spring, as most climbers do, then you’re looking at an $11,000 royalty payment. You’ll also be asked to provide a $4,000 garbage management fee which you can have refunded if you bring enough trash back down with you.

In 2023, that fee faced a proposed increase to $15,000 in an effort to control the numbers because people keep going up there and dying. The new fee will go into effect in 2025.

6. DC Pays Much Bigger Royalties to Comics Creators Than Marvel

If you follow comic book news, this one may not be a surprise to you but it might be to the casual movie fan. It’s no secret comic book movies are huge business and they make literal billions of dollars. Many of those movies are based on whole storylines that were first printed in the comics. All the characters are, of course, from the comics as well. So do the writers or artists behind Deadpool and Thanos and Joker get their piece of the pie? Not as much as you’d think. 

Jim Starlin, for instance, is credited with creating Thanos, the huge villain from the MCU’s long and elaborate film series. He also created Gamora and Drax. Starlin never said what Disney paid him for putting his creations in so many films but it has been confirmed by several sources that Marvel/Disney give the comics creators $5000 and a ticket to the movie premier. 

Contrast that with Starlin’s admission that DC also paid him for the use of the character KGBeast in the Batman v Superman movie and they paid him substantially more. If you don’t remember KGBeast it’s because in the movie he was just a regular guy and they never called him by that name. But DC still paid for him, meaning DC pays significantly higher royalties for even minor characters that Marvel does for major ones.  How much more? According to Starlin, more than all the Marvel movies combined. 

5. Marvel Got Paid Royalties Every Time Hulk Hogan Wrestled

Speaking of comic book royalties, let’s look at the Hulk. The Incredible Hulk debuted in 1962, one of Marvel comics’ oldest characters appearing before the X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and many others. The name Hulk became synonymous with the big green monster forever afterwards. But there was another pop culture hulk most of us remember, too. Hulk Hogan.

Although hulk is a perfectly normal noun that refers to anything large and unwieldy you can’t just call yourself Hulk and be a big, muscular dude at the same time. Marvel comics owns the big, muscley Hulk. So, for 20 years, Terry Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, paid royalties to Marvel comics to use his stage name. 

Hogan had appeared in a promotional photo with Lou Ferrigno back in the 70s when Ferrigno played the Incredible Hulk on TV. Someone made the joke that Hogan, taller and more muscular, was the real Hulk. The nickname stuck, and he carried it through a few wrestling promotions until the WWE (then WWF) signed him. 

Hogan was an instant star, and the WWF was just becoming the biggest, and only, name in wrestling for most people. They kept introducing him as the Incredible Hulk Hogan and by the time they were drawing crowds to Madison Square Garden, Marvel stepped in.

Hogan had to drop “incredible” and, from then on, Marvel got $100 for every match he wrestled. For 20 years. They also got a small portion of all Hulk merchandise. The deal likely made Marvel millions.

4. Warner Paid Royalties to John Hinckley for a Devo Song

Sometimes paying royalties makes perfect sense, like if a musician uses a sample of someone else’s work in a song. That happened to the band Devo and Warner, their label, had to pay when the band used a sample of poetry in a song. But it’s the “who” that makes it a little more off-putting in this case. They used the words of John Hinckley, the man most famous for trying to assassinate Ronald Reagan. And Warner had to pay.

The song I Desire came out in 1982, a year after Hinckley tried to kill the President. He had also infamously written love poems to Jodie Foster, and it was one of those poems Devo sampled for their song. The band asked him if they could use it and he said yes. Thus, he was a co-writer of the song. But Warner didn’t know until it was too late. 

In 2021, Hickley said on Twitter that he hadn’t been paid in decades. 

3. The Seattle Space Needle is Trademarked And You Need To Pay to Use It

A lot of cities have something that stands out on the skyline to make them easily identifiable. For Seattle, it’s the Space Needle. But you can’t go off and use the image of the Space Needle all willy-nilly if you’re trying to promote something in the city. The building is a trademark and you need to pay royalties for its likeness. 

In 2022, a coffee chain was sued by the company that owns the Space Needle for trademark infringement but the two companies came to a settlement. 

If you want to use an image of the Seattle skyline for anything commercial, Getty Images points out that you cannot do so if the key feature is the Space Needle. Even the name “Space Needle” is protected and the company will ask anyone using it commercially to change it when it comes to their attention. You can go to the Space Needle website and fill out a form if you wish to use the image, however.

2. Alaskan Residents Get a Yearly Oil Royalty Check 

If you like free money, but not a lot of free money, consider moving to Alaska. Residents of the state are given a yearly royalty check just for living in a state that’s full of oil. In 2023, Alaskans were issued a $1,312 check as their portion of the state’s oil fund.  The year before it was over $3,000.

The money changes from year to year and apparently it’s an absolute nightmare of political red tape as the government has to decide how to allocate the funds through the year to cover all kinds of unrelated things like education or transportation when there are shortfalls in those budgets. But all of that aside, there’s always something for the people of Alaska, whatever the politicians end up deciding, and it’s unique to the state. 

1. The US Had to Pay Royalties to Germany for the Springfield Rifle 

There’s a lot of business that goes into war and many people make money off of it. That’s more of a modern realization and not something everyone was concerned with back in the day. But maybe they should have been. After all, it looks like the US was paying royalties to Germany for rifles based on the German Mauser. And they were paying them during WWI.

The Mauser 98 is arguably the most famous rifle ever made. Between 91 and 125 million have been made and countries around the world copied the design for their own. This included the United States. Because of this, governments were paying royalties to Germany for the design.

The US had worked out an agreement in 1905 to pay $0.75 per rifle plus $0.50 per thousand clips to a maximum of $200,000. Later, the Springfield M1903 would try to duplicate the Mauser design but tweak a few elements to avoid royalties, which failed in the long run. The US ended up paying a number of penalties and fees to Germany even after the First World War began, while the US was still neutral.

After Covid-19 hit and we got into the swing of the pandemic, the world economy took us all for a ride. Prices rose dramatically across the board for gas, food, and pretty much everything. And, in many cases, they stayed high even after it made no sense and reports of companies making record profits came up, destroying much of the narrative around supply chain issues. But incredible markups are nothing new in business, and we all pay through the nose for many items that should be much cheaper.

10. Mattress Markups Range from 40% to 900%

It’s a strange system we’ve set up in the retail world. As you may have heard, grocery stores tend to have very thin margins. The cost of growing a head of lettuce, harvesting it, shipping it to the store, and putting it on display doesn’t leave much room for profit when it’s finally sold. Grocery store margins are around 5%.

On the other hand, a mattress has a markup that can range from as low as 40% to as much as 900% in some cases. That’s a massive increase. The justification for this is that you might need a head of lettuce every week, but you might only change your mattress after a decade or more. So mattress manufacturers must sell at a higher price to stay in business. That said, a mattress store may only need to sell 20 mattresses monthly to stay in business.  Sometimes they won’t even sell that much, but because they’re part of a chain, it doesn’t matter.

9. Funeral Homes Can Markup Caskets as Much as 500%

The median cost for a funeral with burial in America is nearly $8,000. Funeral homes are known to charge massive markups on caskets due in no small part to the fact they were the only source of caskets for years, and they’re still the most likely place you’ll look for one when you need one. They can charge up to five times the wholesale price, with some elaborate caskets costing $25,000 or more.  Markups from 200% to 400% are par for the course. 

Between 1986 and 2016, the price of caskets increased by more than twice that of all other commodities, far outstripping inflation or any potential economic reasons for such an increase. 

8. Text Message Marksup are Staggeringly High

How is your cell phone plan? Do you have unlimited data? What about unlimited texting?  In 2015 it was estimated that about 88% of US cell phones had unlimited texting plans. Based on the rates that carriers charge, this is an absolute necessity. Carriers like Verizon charge $0.20 per text if you don’t have unlimited. It costs them three-tenths of a cent to send that text, however. That’s a 6000% markup. 

That might not seem like much, but if 12% of phones don’t have unlimited texting and there are 320 million cell connections in the US, 38.4 million phones don’t have free texting. One source estimates Americans send and receive an average of 32 texts per day. That works out to $245.76 million per day that no one needs to spend, and that costs the carriers almost nothing. 

7. Printer Ink Has Huge MarkUps and Sells at Lower Volumes

Few things are more frustrating than a home printer. This has been a joke for years now. When you can get them to work, you still have to deal with running out of ink and buying expensive new cartridges all the time. Ink is the real money maker for printers, and manufacturers offer the hardware very cheaply while making a killing on the ink. It’s based on the same principle as razor manufacturers, which sell the razor itself low and charge bigger markups on replacement blades. 

Many printer manufacturers sell the same-sized ink cartridges but drastically decrease the ink volume, increasing the price by as much as 300%.

6. HDMI Cables Have Massive Markups

If you head to Amazon right now and look for HDMI cables, you’ll find some under $5 and many more under $20. But some cables cost anywhere from $40 to $80 or more, depending on where you look. In 2018, WireWorld had a $10,500 HDMI cable that claimed to have “a 24-conductor DNA Helix design, composilex 2 insulation, and solid silver conductors.”

Is an expensive HDMI cable with a DNA helix design a thing anyone needs? Not really. Cables are where electronics stores make money. Ten dollars worth of cable can be sold for $100 at a high-end store to maximize profit. In one case, an HDMI cable sold at Best Buy for $40 was found at another store for $4, giving a 1,000% markup. 

Most higher-priced HDMI cables are only necessary to play high frame-rate games on your TV. For just watching TV, you can upgrade from a normal TV to a 4K without bothering to switch cables in many cases. 

5. Wedding Dresses Are Dramatically Marked Up Compared to Identical Non-Wedding Dresses

Like the funeral business, the wedding business is known to be a cash hole. You just keep throwing money into it and hoping things turn out for the best. One of the biggest scams seems to be wedding dresses. In 2016 a research company concluded that dress retailers would mark up a white wedding dress 3.9 times more than what a nearly identical white dress would sell for if the word wedding didn’t have anything to do with it. 

A counter-argument was made that more craftsmanship goes into the actual wedding dress than just the white dress itself. However, if you look at dresses for bridesmaids, the same thing happens. A bridesmaid’s dress will cost nearly twice as much as a nearly identical dress that hasn’t been listed as being for bridesmaids. 

At least one source claims a wedding dress could cost as little as $200 to make, but then it will retail for $5,000. These can often be brand name “cookie cutter” dresses, but the store selling them hides the manufacturer’s names, so you don’t know you’re getting a factory-made dress that could be cheaper elsewhere. Keeping brides in the dark allows the whole industry to thrive on markups. 

4. Restaurants Mark Up Little Things by Huge Percentages

We all know that when we go to a restaurant, we will pay more for food than at home. You’re paying for the convenience and the experience, and the price will include the cost of the product, the cost of the labor, and the cost of all the restaurant overhead. After that, there has to be enough for them to have a profit to make it worthwhile. None of this is a mystery, and we all accept this as the price is going to a restaurant.

However, it is interesting to note how much things in a restaurant can get marked up. We often don’t stop to think about what it means when we see on a menu that sour cream will cost you an extra 50 cents or guacamole is nearly three dollars.

A meat pizza can have a markup of as much as 636%. That guacamole may cost Chipotle just over 50 cents to produce, making the markup close to 500%. Hamburgers can be marked up 355% or more, while extra pizza toppings at maybe $2 each or more can be over 500%.

One of the biggest markups comes in the form of soda. A two-liter bottle of Coke can be as little as two dollars or about $0.03 per ounce. A small McDonald’s Coke is 12 ounces, which would retail for $0.36. They used to charge $1 for those, but they’re up to $1.79 in some markets. That’s nearly a 500% markup. In casual dining restaurants, the markup can get even higher, over 1,000% in some cases.

3. Glasses Markups Can Get as High as 1000%

If you wear glasses, you probably dread anytime you need new ones. Aside from the inconvenience of getting your eyes checked, the cost of new glasses can be very intimidating. Things have become much more reasonable in recent years thanks to online stores that offer you glasses at greatly reduced prices. 

How does an online store sell you a pair of glasses for hundreds of dollars less than you pay at an eyeglass store? Not having as much overhead as part of it and having the production facility on site also helps, but glasses were just horribly marked up before because you didn’t have any other options, and they could get away with it. 

Two former Executives from LensCrafters admitted that glasses are marked up as much as 1,000%. The reason is that the same company produces most glasses. Luxxotica has nearly cornered the market on glasses and owns most stores where you buy them. They make frames and lenses and own the stores. They even own an insurance company that covers vision benefits for customers, so they get you to pay them to pay themselves. This allows them to artificially increase the prices because they have little to no competition.

2. Bottled Water Markups Can Get Astronomical

Bottled water is a huge industry. It was worth over $283 billion in 2021. It was only in the mid-90s that bottled water became a ubiquitous thing. The idea of paying for a bottle of water was considered stupid before that. However, in the following decades, it has become something people expect everywhere.

Many bottled water companies will try to market their water by saying it comes from a fresh spring, a mountain somewhere, or whatever. Not all bother to do that. Many brands of bottled water are just tap water. Dasani water is the same water that the Coca-Cola company uses for everything else they make and comes from the municipal supply at their factory. 

San Francisco has some of the most expensive tap water in the United States. You’re going to pay $6.07 per cubic meter for tap water. There are over 33,000 oz in a cubic meter of water. So, per ounce, San Francisco’s tap water costs $0.00018. A single 20 oz bottle of Dasani costs about $2.12 at Walmart, or $0.106 per ounce. That makes Dasani, which is tap water, 589 times more expensive than San Francisco tap water. And that’s at the low end of the scale.

The price difference can change dramatically based on sources. In some cases, the markup gets as high as 280,000% for “designer” water that’s grossly overpriced. 

1. Movie Theater Popcorn Markups are Over 1,000%

The economics of the film industry is one of the most baffling things you’ll ever try to understand. A studio can spend over $250 million to make a movie and then another $300 million on marketing so it needs to make a billion dollars to be considered a success. At some point, these numbers get so big that they barely make sense to the rest of us. And that’s just ticket prices at the box office.

Movie theaters make very little off selling a ticket to see a film; they kick about 70% to studios. They have to get most of their bank from the concession stand. And that’s why you go to a movie theater and pay $20 for a medium Coca-Cola and a bag of popcorn. You can make the same thing yourself and maybe pay $2 at the supermarket for what went into it.

A small bag of popcorn costs at least $5.50 at the movie theater. Keep in mind popcorn weighs almost nothing. Per ounce, that’s more than the cost of filet mignon. Making popcorn costs about 10 cents per ounce, so the markup in a movie theater is around 1,300%. In 2010 that markup was 1,275%, so it’s only increased slightly in over a decade.

Who are top highest paid Korean actors in 2023? Korea is an enormous industry when it come to television shows and films or dramas. Extraordinarily skilled Korean entertainers, and furthermore Korean on-screen characters, have bolstered media outlets in the country. Honestly, this industry has conveyed a segment of the best entertainers in the Korea. Here is the list ‘highest paid’ once-over of top paid on-screen characters in 2023.

Top 10 highest paid Korean actors 2022-2023.

10. Ji Chang Wook

He is a South Korean actor who is particularly noticeable through all the country. He got fame after playing the lead role in in daily drama series “Smile Again”. Furthermore, he is one the most attractive performing specialists in the country. Wook has worked in several drama serial including Empress Ki, Warrior Dong-soo, and Healer. For each scene, he charges $42,000.

Ji Chang Wook, who is 34 years old, born in Anyang, South Korea. One of the top highest paid Korean actors, and he is 182 cm tall. At the end of 2021, Ji Chang Wook’s estimated net worth is $12.5 Million (Approx.)

9. Lee Jong Suk

Lee Jong Suk is the youngest model of the Seoul Fashion Week. He has played the lead roles in Doctor Stranger, School 2013, Pinocchio and I Can Hear Your Voice. Lee charges $50,300 for each scene. Born on September 14, 1989 (age 32) at Suwon, South Korea. Lee is 182cm tall and one of the top 10 highest paid Korean actors. At the end of 2021, Lee Jong Suk’s estimated net worth is $32 Million (Approx.)

8. Yoo Ah In

He is a South Korean performing actor who rose to fame through Sungkyunkwan Scandal – a well known Television series of action in Korea. Furthermore, Yoo Ah In is a champion, he is among the most attractive entertainers in Korea. He is best known for his roles in Secret Love, Punch, The Throne, Six Flying Dragons, and Veteran. Yoo Ah In charges $58,700 per scene.

He was born on October 6, 1986 (age 34) at Daegu, South Korea. He is 178 cm tall. At the end of 2021, Yoo Ah In’s estimated net worth is $10 Million (Approx.)

7. So Ji Sub

He is an acclaimed Korean performing actor, who is best known for his roles in various Television series like; Cain And Abel, Oh My Venus, Master’s Sun, and I’m Sorry. So Ji Sub charges $67,100 per scene. So Ji Sub was born on November 4, 1977 (age 44) at Seoul, South Korea. He is 185 cm tall.

The fourth riches and one of the highest paid Korean actors. At the end of 2021, So Ji Sub’s estimated net worth is $16 Million (Approx.)

6. Jo In Sung

He is a South Korean actor who has played leading roles in various Television series, like; That Winter, What Happened in Bali, It’s Okay, and the Wind Blows. He charges $67,100 per scene. Jo in Sung was born at Cheonho-dong, South Korea on July 28, 1981 (age 40). He is 184 cm tall.

At No. 6 among the top 10 highest paid Korean actors. At the end of 2021, Jo In Sung estimated net worth is $12 Million (Approx.)

5. Lee Min Ho

He is likewise a model and vocalist. Lee Min Ho gained widespread fame in Korea with his role in Boys over Flowers, which had won him a couple of awards. Also, Lee Min Ho won the Best New Actor Award in Televisions. He also noted for his leading roles in City Hunter, The Heirs, and Personal Faith.

Lee starred in his first leading role in film with Gangnam Blues (2015), followed by his first China-produced film Bounty Hunters (2016). He charges $78,700 for each scene. Born on June 22, 1987 (age 34) in Heukseok, South Korea, he is 187 cm tall. At the end of 2021, Lee Min Ho’s estimated net worth is $10 Million (Approx.)

4. Hyun Bin

He is an eminent South Korean actor who has known for his roles in various Korean Television Dramas. Hyun Bin has played leading roles in various TV shows including Secret Garden, Sam-Soon, and My Name is Kim that gave him much reputation. He charges $83,900 per scene. Bin was born at Jamsil-dong, South Korea on September 25, 1982 (age 39). He is 180 cm tall.

Consider one of the best actor of all time in Korea. Hyun Bin earned 130 million won per episode for ‘Crash Landing on You’. The second richest and one of the highest paid Korean actors. At the end of 2021, Hyun Bin estimated net worth is $21 Million (Approx.)

3. Lee Seung GI

Lee Seung GI is a singer, actor, host and entertainer. He’s among the most searched on-screen character in Korea. He is notable for numerous hit songs such as “Because You’re My Woman”, “Will You Marry Me”, and “Return”. And, Lee Seung GI charges $58,700 per scene. Lee Seung GI was born on January 13, 1987 (age 34) at Banghak-Dong, South Korea. He is 180 cm tall.

Lee Seung-gi’s endorsement charges is as much as 700 million won ($582,472. It’s no surprise that multi-talented actor, singer and host is the third highest paid actor in Korea. Lee is at No. 3 among the top highest paid Korean actors. At the end of 2021, Lee Seung GI estimated net worth is $16 Million (Approx.)

2. Song Joong KI

He is a South Korean on-screen character who has rose to fame through historical drama Sungkyunkwan Scandal. He has worked in many other shows and feature films. Song Joong KI charge as much as 200 million WON ($166,426) per episode. He was born on September 19, 1985.

Tune Joong KI is 175 cm tall. One of the richest Korean, holding second place among the highest paid Korean actors. At the end of 2021, Song Joong KI’s estimated net worth is $21 Million (Approx.)

1. Kim Soo Hyun

Finally, at top place amongst the highest paid Korean actors is Kim Soo Hyun. Best known for his roles in the dramas like; Dream High, Moon Embracing the Sun, My Love from the Star and The Producers. He also appeared in feature movies like; The Thieves and Secretly, Greatly. Kim Soo Hyun followed by more than 13 millions on Instagram.

Kim was included in Forbes Korea Power Celebrity list at 4th in 2013, 2nd in 2015 and 5th in 2016. He charge as much as 200 million WON ($166,426) per episode, subsequently make him the highest paid on-screen character in Korea. The success of his television dramas throughout Asia established him as a top Hallyu star. He is 177cm tall. At the end of 2021, Kim Soo Hyun estimated net worth is $110 Million (Approx.)

Actors are some of the most well-compensated members of society, or at least those who make it to Hollywood are. And all actors who work on Screen Actors Guild movies (which is pretty much everyone in Hollywood) get paid, whether they appear in the finished product or not. Thanks to pay-or-play contracts, many top-tier actors get a check even if they don’t actually work at all.

But the reasons actors end up not starring in movies they’ve been paid for are many. Some are cut out of films, some get fired before the director has ever called action, and some, perplexingly, never have anything to do with the production in the first place.

10 Shailene Woodley, The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Before Tom Holland donned the red spandex, Andrew Garfield was the world’s principal web-swinger in a film series that began with The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012 and ended with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 a mere two years later. Garfield’s fifteen minutes of Spidey fame have been looked upon more fondly in recent years, but some of the series’ stars didn’t even get fifteen seconds!

Shailene Woodley, best known for the Divergent series, signed on to play Mary-Jane Watson in the second Amazing Spider-Man, but her feet hardly touched the ground before she was whisked out the door again. Director Marc Webb (the puns write themselves) shot three scenes with the actress, intending MJ to be a minor presence and secondary romantic interest for Garfield’s Peter Parker. But ultimately, he decided to leave her parts on the cutting room floor when streamlining an already 142-minute movie. Even though her time on set was brief, and the public never got to see the actress on screen, Woodley still got paid for paying her dues.^[1]

9 Johnny Depp, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

The third installment in the Fantastic Beasts series, The Secrets of Dumbledore, exploded onto screens in 2022, but most of the series’ magic had already evaporated. The writing was lax, the film felt superfluous, and several public controversies plagued the film, including Potterverse author and Fantastic Beasts screenwriter JK Rowling’s ongoing friction with some of the trans community. But few controversies were as large as the domestic abuse allegations made by Amber Heard against Johnny Depp (who starred as antagonist Gellert Grindelwald in the first two Fantastic Beasts films) and the subsequent libel case that he lost against UK tabloid newspaper The Sun.

Seeking to cut their losses and save face following the outcome of the court case, in which the judge found that 12 of the 14 domestic abuse allegations had occurred, Fantastic Beasts studio Warner Bros. cut ties with Depp and hired Mads Mikkelsen to replace him. Lucky for Depp, he had only filmed one scene for The Secrets of Dumbledore; unlucky for Warner, he had a pay-or-play contract entitling him to his full salary for the film—an eye-watering $16 million.^[2]

8 Bob Hoskins, The Untouchables

The production for Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables, a film about the team who took down Al Capone, brought together four of the 20th century’s biggest acting talents in Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, and Andy Garcia. The film has gone down in history as one of the best crime films set in the Prohibition era.

While the entire cast is pitch-perfect, De Niro’s Al Capone is a particular highlight, with the veteran gangster actor carrying off both the physicality and voice of Capone with ease. Though De Niro was the first choice for the part, the actor was in high demand, and De Palma hedged his bets by getting English actor Bob Hoskins to agree to take the role if De Niro couldn’t make it. When De Niro took the part, Hoskins thought nothing of it until a check for $200,000 arrived in the mail with a note saying, “Thanks for your time. Love, Brian.”^[3]

7 Paul Rudd, Bridesmaids

It’s not often a big-name actor gets cut from a film for little to no reason, but that’s precisely what happened during the editing process for Paul Feig’s 2011 all-star smash hit comedy Bridesmaids. Bringing together comedians from SNL, various comedy shows, and the films of Judd Apatow (who served as producer on Bridesmaids), the film is a who’s-who of the U.S. comedy scene at the turn of the decade.

But some of its best comedic talent didn’t even make it onto the screen. Paul Rudd was originally set to cameo in the film as protagonist Annie’s (Kristen Wiig) blind date, who loses touch with reality when a child skates over his fingers. Rudd shot with the crew for a day and, by all accounts, threw himself into a sequence that saw him pratfall across an ice rink and swear liberally at children. But in terms of screen time, it amounted to nothing, as Feig cut him from the film to keep the narrative tight and give more screen time to child actor Blake Garrett who was, by all accounts, comedy gold. Thanks to the Screen Actors Guild, though, Rudd still got paid.^[4]

6 Kevin Spacey, All the Money in the World

Fantastic Beasts was not the first film to drop an actor thanks to controversies going on away from the set, but few films have gone as far as All the Money in the World did when it comes to eradicating a star from the celluloid. Filming had completed, and the film was in the end stages of post-production when sexual misconduct allegations were made against star Kevin Spacey by fellow actor Anthony Rapp.

Recognizing that this could sound the death knell for his film, director Ridley Scott sprang into action, used his industry clout to secure an extra $10 million in financing, and hired Christopher Plummer to replace Spacey as billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. They filmed an additional 400 shots over nine days in two countries, and Scott used digital and practical effects teams extensively to help blend the new actor into the existing picture. As Spacey had completed his work on the film and fulfilled his contract, both actors ended up getting paid despite only one appearing in the final film.^[5]

5 Tim Roth, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood broke many of director Quentin Tarantino’s long-established tropes and filmic traditions, serving up a tale about the Manson family murders that contained surprisingly little violence and more tension and meditative contemplation than merchandisable quick quips. One of the telltale signs of a Tarantino flick, however, was the presence of a familiar cast of actors, bringing together Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Kurt Russell, Bruce Dern, and others from the director’s previous features.

Conspicuously absent, however, was Tim Roth—who has been with Tarantino since Reservoir Dogs—despite being paid to be in the film. Roth filmed sequences as Hollywood hair stylist Jay Sebring’s (Emile Hirsch) British butler, serving little more than a cameo role, which is ultimately why Tarantino decided to drop his part altogether. Given the film is already nearly three hours long, perhaps it’s a good thing he did.^[6]

4 Tobey Maguire, Life of Pi

It’s not often you end up being booted from a film for being too well-known, but that’s what happened to Tobey Maguire in Life of Pi. Ang Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel sees a young Indian boy, Pi (Suraj Sharma), stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean aboard a lifeboat with only a tiger named Richard Parker for company. In the film, the story is told by a grown-up Pi (Irrfan Khan) to a fictionalized version of the author, known only as The Writer.

Tobey Maguire was originally on board to play the fictionalized Martel, but after filming had begun, Lee didn’t feel Maguire was a good fit for the part and replaced him with the far less recognizable Rafe Spall. It should come as no great surprise that Lee changed his mind to “be consistent with other casting choices made for the film” because the majority of the cast, save perhaps for Gérard Depardieu’s Cook, were not as well known to Western audiences.^[7]

3 Harrison Ford, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

There isn’t an adult or child across the established world who doesn’t associate the name Steven Spielberg with his family-friendly alien flick E.T., but back when it was being made, the director was better known for more adult-oriented films like Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It makes sense then that he wanted to carry over some of what he knew from those films into this, and while subject parallels with the likes of Close Encounters are easy to draw, E.T. doesn’t bear a whole lot of resemblance to Indiana Jones.

Nonetheless, Spielberg’s filmmaking comfort food in this feature was Harrison Ford himself. The director cast Ford against type as an uptight school principal who reprimands young protagonist Elliott (Henry Thomas) in his office. Shot over Ford’s shoulder and in dim lighting, this cameo was always meant to be an Easter egg for fans, but it didn’t make it into the film at all.

A notoriously unsentimental editor, Spielberg didn’t think the scene added anything to the film and left it on the cutting room floor. While details of the sum Ford actually got paid are scarce, it wouldn’t have been spare change, given he was just concluding a run starring in Raiders, The Empire Strikes Back, and Blade Runner.^[8]

2 Michael Biehn, Alien 3

David Fincher’s Alien 3 received a lambasting from fans and critics upon release for a multitude of reasons. The film didn’t serve the series trajectory well, the studio interfered in the process throughout and refused Fincher’s final cut, and above all else, James Cameron’s and Ridley Scott’s (director of the first two Alien films) footsteps were awfully big for a first-time director to follow in.

Among the film’s issues was the killing of legacy characters Newt (Carrie Henn) and Hicks (Michael Biehn) at the beginning of the film when an alien egg hatches on board their ship, and their escape pod crashes into a nearby planet. Neither Biehn nor Henn had signed on for another film, so Fincher couldn’t use the actors, but the production team initially worked with a facial cast of Biehn taken in Aliens to create a prosthetic doppelganger. Biehn got wind of this and put his agent onto the studio, saying they couldn’t use his image. Ultimately, he agreed to let them use his likeness, but only for a hefty fee.^[9]

1 Eric Stoltz, Back to the Future

Back to the Future remains one of the foremost time travel sci-fi films of the 20th century, and its conception of time travel has come to be the go-to exemplar for the single, alterable timeline, in which changes to the past affect changes in the future. As a result, Back to the Future deals with the idea that if we went back in time and changed things, we might end up accidentally erasing ourselves. Unfortunately for Eric Stoltz, his approach to Robert Zemeckis’s script resulted in him being erased from the production.

Originally cast as teen hero Marty McFly, Stoltz brought an air of melancholy and darkness to the role, treating the part as a tragedy rather than the family-friendly comic stylings Zemeckis had in mind. Not getting laughs from the dailies and concerned that this casting decision could sink the whole film, Zemeckis opted to fire Stoltz six weeks into filming, costing the studio two actors’ salaries and adding millions of dollars to the budget. But Michael J Fox took over as McFly, and the rest is history, or the future, or something like that…^[10]