Amazing Salary! Robert Downey J
The Avengers is smashing box office records left, right and center – making a lot of money for Marvel, Disney and Paramount Pictures. The $220 million budgeted adventure (at the time of writing) is closing in on $400 million at the domestic box office and it has already racked-up over $1 billion dollars at the global box office.
Now, stop for a minute and think about how much of that money goes to the stars of the movie. If you’re Robert Downey Jr. then you could be looking at $50 million… minimum.
The Iron Man star is set to score a proverbial king’s ransom for the movie, much more than his co-stars, who will be getting significantly less. Marvel is famously known for “low balling “ talent when they’re negotiating deals for their superhero films – Mickey Rourke was offered just $250,000 for his role in Iron Man 2 - however, the studio does seem to be lavishing cash on Downey Jr. Following the success of Iron Man in 2008 (it banked $585 million worldwide); the actor’s agents renegotiated his deal so that he would receive profit participation in any future movies where he played Iron Man - allegedly 5 to 7 percent of the box office gross. It must have seemed like a sweet deal then but even sweeter now when the grosses are doubled.
The rest of the cast aren’t so lucky. Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson are said to be scoring an estimated $4 – 6 million apiece – once their upfront fee and box office bonus is combined. It’s still a lot of cash, but nothing compared to that of Robert Downey Jr. Meanwhile, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo will probably bank around $2 – 3 million each for their work on The Avengers. Again this is serious money – but not much when you take into account the billions of dollars the film will make once other ancillaries are added.
Usually, studios prefer not to give away any “first dollar points,” meaning that if a film makes, say $100 million at the box office, a “first dollar” person will score a percentage of that number. They usually prefer to pay out “net points,” meaning that the person will only get paid once it goes into profit after all deductions and costs have been taken away. Coming to America writer, Art Buchwald once famously filed a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures after the studio claimed that the Eddie Murphy starrer hadn’t made any net profit-even though it grossed $288 million worldwide. In 2010 Warner Bros, claimed that Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix was still $167 million in the red, after it had grossed $938.2 million globally.
Those who do manage to get first dollar gross participation often reap rich dividends. Johnny Depp is said to have made $250 million from the four Pirates of the Caribbean films, Michael Bay made $80 million from the first Transformers, while Jack Nicholson pocked $60 million for 1989’s Batman and Tom Cruise regularly takes home $75 million for his Mission: Impossible role.
They say that money makes the world go round. Well, it certainly keeps things going in Hollywood.
Robert Downey Jr. Net Worth
American actor, Robert John Downey Jr. has an estimated net worth of $85 million. He made his big return with summertime blockbuster hit as superhero Tony Stark in the movie Iron Man (2008), capping two decades of films and overcoming a reputation as one of Hollywood’s rambunctious bad boys. Iron Man was a huge success, its opening weekend is still in the top 25 openings of all time. He reprised the role of Tony Stark in the 2010 sequel, Iron Man 2, again in 2012 in The Avengers, and in the third film of the trilogy, Iron Man 3, which broke Box Office Records in 2013.
He is the son of renegade filmmaker Robert Downey, Junior became a young star in the 1980s in films such as Less Than Zero (1987) and Chances Are (1989), and at the age of 27 he was nominated for an Oscar for his star performance as Charlie Chaplin in the 1992 film Chaplin. From 1996 through 2001, he made headlines of a different sort, piling up arrests for offenses related to drugs and alcohol and ultimately spending time in jail. Released in 2000, he returned to the small screen on TV’s Ally McBeal, only to get arrested twice more by the end of 2001. He then bounced back again, appearing in smaller films such as Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005), Edward R. Murrow biopic Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), the animated A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006). His turn as Iron Man was followed by the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder (2008), in which Downey plays an actor who has undergone surgery to make him appear African-American.
In 2009, Downey starred as fictional British detective Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes and its follow-up Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, released Christmas 2009 and 2011, respectively. Soon after Sherlock Holmes, Downey won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the famous detective. Downey’s earnings power has gone stratospheric in recent years, although business magazine Forbes still labels him the fourth best value actor in the movies in 2010 because of the vast returns he helps generate for his pay, suggesting he should be negotiating himself even fatter fees in future. It could have all turned out differently for the troubled Downey as his own life has taken a series of anti-heroic turns on the road to this success. He has gone from puppy to doghouse to top dog in four decades. A perfect Hollywood ending. He is married to film producer Susan Levin, together they have a son.
No comments:
Post a Comment