I came of age in the 90s and I remember (at a very early age) hearing of Jim Carrey being payed $20 million for the Cable Guy in '96 and how it was a big shock to the industry. There were big names like Schwarzenegger and Stallone who were also given that amount for action vehicles with some dependable names like Cruise, Gibson, Hanks, Costner, Ford and Roberts not too far off. Not even touching upon the actors given a percentage of the profits which really solidifies who was a big star and who was not.

Now today it looks more and more as if only the MCU stars are taking that big paper. Downey Jr got 50 million for The Avengers and supposedly got over 100 million for Infinity War and Endgame.

According to IMDB, Colin Farrell jumped out the gate with getting 2-2.5 million for his first few Hollywood films: American Outlaws, Hart's War and Minority Report. He must have had one hell of an agent.

What are some shocking film salaries?

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Financial_Doctor7150 t1_iu8s6ig wrote on October 29, 2022 at 1:16 PM

i heard jack nicholson was the first to get a massive paydeal on batman 1989 he wanted 10 percent of the box office and made about 60 million dollars keanu Reeves did the same for the matrix 2 and earned 100 mill i have no clue what the rock would earn as black adam ,it seems hes the biggest star right now

LatkaGravas t1_iu97qx8 wrote on October 29, 2022 at 3:21 PM

I think Marlon Brando was the first, actually, to negotiate a payday that was earthshaking in the industry. In early 1975 Brando signed on to Superman: The Movie with a salary of $3.7 million and 11.75% of the box office gross profits, totaling $19 million. That was for five minutes of screen time. Those numbers may not seem huge but in the mid '70s, on an inflation-adjusted basis as compared to even 1989, they were massive. America was just about to come off the gold standard (May of that year), so the dollar had not yet begun to depreciate. While Nicholson's numbers for Batman were impressive the dollar by 1989 was already worth nowhere near as much as it was in the mid '70s.

Anyway, whether Brando or Nicholson made "more" is beside the point. Brando blew the doors off when it came to actor compensation. I don't recall another actor getting that kind of back-end deal until Nicholson for Batman, actually.

igoslowly t1_iu9dtz6 wrote on October 29, 2022 at 4:05 PM

tom cruise is getting 10% of top gun maverick gross and it’s at $1.45 billion from box office sales

kasetti t1_iu8x4p1 wrote on October 29, 2022 at 2:00 PM

Actors used to be what sold movies, so it makes sense they would get a big salary for their star power. Nowadays its much less relevant apart from the likes Rock or Cruise.

ymiwho t1_iu8tewb wrote on October 29, 2022 at 1:27 PM

I know Liz Taylor was the first actor to get a million dolars for only one picture. She asked it as a joke but Fox accepted her request (soon they'd regret it).

chichris t1_iu9hh54 wrote on October 29, 2022 at 4:31 PM

A lot of them take backend deals now. Cameron Diaz made 30-40M on Bad Teacher. Tom Cruise will make 100M for TG:M.

Sea_Presentation_314 OP t1_iu9m7mn wrote on October 29, 2022 at 5:04 PM

I'd have figured he'd make 3x that.

ymiwho t1_iuamddv wrote on October 29, 2022 at 9:21 PM

Can't believe it. Bad Teacher is awful but good for her

LatinAmericanCinema t1_iu8xbpz wrote on October 29, 2022 at 2:01 PM

It seems like a few years back, 20 million was a bit like the upper limit for A-list actors. But that is the "pure" salary. The Downey Jr sums you mention include (AFAIR) the additional box-office percentages his agent negotiated.

IMDB includes some examples of salaries on many actors' biography pages, like here for Marion Cotillard: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0182839/bio

I'd also assume that exact salaries are not necessarily public information, so some of the information out there might be estimates and rumours.

I also don't know how much of the money stated as "salary" in the contract goes to the actor and how large of a cut goes to their agent, their management, their PR people, their lawyer, their dog-walker, etc., etc.

RyzenRaider t1_iucrvus wrote on October 30, 2022 at 10:21 AM

Bear in mind, $20m in 1996 is worth about $37m today. So $50m to secure your very likeable lead actor for a $250-300m movie that's gonna sell like gangbusters internationally is actually not that bad.

You gotta remember, Jim Carrey got literally a few hundred thousand for the first movie he made in 1994. Between Dumb & Dumber, The Mask and Ace Ventura, he went from TV comic to movie superstar, and 2 years later, his salary was on par with Tom Cruse. That's why his paycheck was noteworthy... The rate of increase was insane and he had jumped into the A-list so quickly.