Forbes Names The Rock As The Highest Paid Actor.

It's official: Dwayne Johnson is now the highest paid actor in history. According to Forbes, the wrestler turned international movie star brought in a brain-melting $124 million last year. That's nearly double the truly impressive $65 million he brought in the year prior. Johnson took to Instagram to acknowledge the achievement. Ever humble, hungry and thankful, The Rock chalks it all up to hard work.

Forbes has been tracking the grosses of Hollywood actors for 20 years. In that time, nobody has ever made as much as Dwayne Johnson in a single year. Part of that has to do with the fact that he's commanding insane paydays, like the $20 million guarantee he's locked down for his upcoming thriller Red Notice. The dude also works a lot and, nine times out of ten, his movies crush at the box office. The rare exception being something like Baywatch last year. Or Skyscraper, which just bombed out at the box office last weekend.

Part of his hefty earnings comes from the use of social media. Dwayne Johnson has 108 million Instagram followers, 13 million Twitter followers and 58 million on Facebook. He's very active and does a lot to help promote his movies with these platforms, but that's not out of the kindness of his heart. The actor now requests a separate seven-figure paycheck to promote his movies on social media. Here's what Johnson had to say about his use of social media for marketing purposes.

"Social media has become the most critical element of marketing a movie for me. I have established a social media equity with an audience around the world that there's a value in what I'm delivering to them."

Dwayne Johnson famously arrived in Tampa, Florida in 1995 after being cut from the Canadian Football League with $7 in his pocket. Now, he's the most financially successful actor on the planet. That's why he named his production company Seven Bucks Productions.

Looks like he is not about to slow down, He's got Disney's The Jungle Cruise filming now, with the Fast and Furious spin-off Hobbs and Shaw coming after that. He's also got the Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle sequel and the aforementioned Red Notice on his docket. Not to mention another season of HBO's Ballers. He's a busy, wealthy man.