With all the much-needed discussion of the gender pay gap in Hollywood lately, and the news that Robert Downey Jr. was the best-paid actor in the world last year, I expected Scarlett Johansson’s paycheck for The Avengers to be low in comparison. But, nope! She’s in second place after RDJ, in this newly released info via Comic Book Movie detailing how much each of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes got paid for their first venture:
Robert Downey Jr: $40 million
Scarlett Johansson: $20 million
Chris Evans: $6.9 million
Jeremy Renner: $6.1 million
Chris Hemsworth: $5.4 million
Mark Ruffalo: $2.8 million
To try to put the results into scale: RDJ made twice as much as ScarJo, who in turn made over twice as much as each of the rest of her co-stars. So, RDJ is still far-and-away the best paid out of all these actors. His paycheck significantly surpasses everybody else’s by, like, a lot.
It’s hard for me to have perspective as to whether these numbers are “fair” because, well, let’s just say I’m no millionaire. Also, it’s clear that the numbers are based on what the actors could negotiate at the time — so, think back to a pre-Avengers world, and the levels of fame and recognition that each of these actors had back then. With that lens, it makes sense that RDJ and ScarJo might have had an easier time negotiating for higher rates. RDJ already had the unprecedented success of Iron Man to point towards, and ScarJo’s been a super-famous A-list star for ages.
I guess it’s worth saying here that I’m not one of those people who hates Scarlett Johansson and/or thinks she’s a bad actress. I like her, so I’m glad to see her getting top bank. But, I suppose this news might annoy all the Jeremy Renner fans out there …
I am a little sad to see Mark Ruffalo in last place, though. His Hulk was one of the unexpected stand-out aspects in the first Avengers film — although I’m sure no one expected that in the early negotiation stages.
What do you think about these numbers? Do they make any sense? What even is the difference between 6 million and 20 million? Is there any analogy that would allow any of us mere peasants to understand what it would be like to negotiate for this high a salary?
(via Comic Book Movie, image via Tumblr)
—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—
Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
