Will Ferrell and Ewan McGregor on Wednesday headed a Forbes.com list of Hollywood’s most overpaid stars when looking at the financial returns of their movies.

Ferrell tops the list of stars who cost more than their movies do, taking in one dollar for every $3.29 his films make. According to Forbes, “Land of the Lost” cost an estimated $US100 million to make but earned just $US65 million at box offices worldwide for movie studio Universal Pictures. The movie followed a disappointing $US43 million box office for Ferrell’s 2008 outing “Semi-Pro“, and $US128 million for “Step Brothers.”

No. 2 on the overpaid actors list is Ewan McGregor (I Love You Phillip Morris, Angels & Demons, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Amelia), who made a slew of poorly performing movies after playing Obi-Wan Kenobi four years ago in “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith.” McGregor’s films earned $3.75 per dollar he was paid.

Forbes 10 Most Overpaid Stars were:

1. Will Ferrell ($US3.29)
2. Ewan McGregor ($US3.75)
3. Billy Bob Thornton ($US4)
4. Eddie Murphy ($US4.43)
5. Ice Cube

   

   ($US4.77)

6. Tom Cruise ($US7.18)
7. Drew Barrymore ($US7.43)
8. Leonardo DiCaprio ($US7.52)
9. Samuel Jackson ($US8.59)
10. Jim Carrey ($US8.62)

After “Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby,” and “Blades of Glory” in which Will Ferrell parodied NASCAR and figure skating, this year he turned to basketball in “Semi-Pro,” another sport comedy, which opens this Friday, Feb. 29.

The movie is set in 1976 and Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, an owner, player and coach of the Flint Michigan Tropics, the worst basketball team in history.

Moon achieved his dream of having his own basketball team after he recorded a success with one hit wonder, “Love Me Sexy.”

As the American Basketball Association announce that it will merge with NBA and that only four teams will be qualified, Moon sees himself in a difficult position: to win the game in order to survive.

As the movie parodies basketball, it also gives attention to the disco era, with big hair, shorts and stunts made in order to get attention.

In the movie Ferrell seems to be same old him, trying to deliver pure stupid comedy with ridiculous scenes. Take for example the stunts he makes during halftime: he has to wrestle a bear or get shot out of a cannon.

Speaking about those stunts Ferrell said: “I loved those, because if you look at what they were doing in the ABA, that’s how the league survived. They did all these stupid promotions to just get people in,” Bostonherald.com reports.

The movie also stars Woody Harrelson as Monix, a real basketball player Moon hires to win the fourth place. Monix used to play in the NBA, but now suffers from a knee injury, bad temper as well and has a weakness for alcohol.

Even so, he arrives just in time to save the team and knows much about the real game.

The movie doesn’t quite hit the note of comedy. Ferrell does the entire job in the movie in his old fashion way, running around with no reason whatsoever, wearing too much hair.

Ferrell mentioned that even though it looks like he has an obsession with sport movies, is not like that.

He said: “I love them, they’re fun, but I’m not really always like, ‘OK, I gotta do a wind-surfing movie now,’ ” Chicago Tribune informs.