Black Widow Scarlett Johansson

While ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ was the first Marvel movie with the female lead’s name in the title, and next year’s ‘Captain Marvel’ will be the first solo outing by a female Marvel hero, the FIRST female Marvel superhero (at least in the movies), Black Widow is finally getting her own solo outing, and Marvel is treating its first lady like a queen.  Scarlett Johansson will become the first Marvel movie star to also serve as executive producer.  And now it has been reported that she will take home $15 million for this picture.  This equals what Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth have each made for ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, ‘Avengers 4’ and their solo movies, ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and ‘Thor: Ragnarok’, respectively.

Iron Man 2

It should be noted that Marvel Studios tends to be… frugal.  Robert Downey Jr. only took home $500,000 for the first ‘Iron Man’, but after that success, he earned $50 million for the first ‘Avengers’.  For the same movie, Johansson reportedly earned a paycheck in the low seven figures, but until then, she’d only been a guest star in ‘Iron Man 2’ and she wasn’t a major draw on her own.

Also, during those early days, Marvel Studios and its chief Kevin Feige fell under the control of the notoriously cheap Ike Perlmuter, CEO of Marvel Entertainment.  Since then, Feige and Marvel Studios seceded and now report directly to Disney’s Alan Horn, and paychecks have increased all around.

Avengers

Chadwick Boseman reportedly earned $2 million for ‘Black Panther’ and is expected to make “significantly” more for the sequel.  On the other hand, Brie Larson reportedly got paid $5 million for ‘Captain Marvel’, but that was in exchange for signing a multi-picture deal, which was reportedly seven movies, but she has since taken to Twitter to refute that.

Marvel has famously tried to keep salaries low because there are so many of these characters in each movie.  For ‘Infinity War’, the cost of just star salaries was reportedly $100 million, but Marvel and Disney needn’t worry, seeing as how these movies typically make over $1 billion.  In this case, ‘Infinity War’ made $2 billion.  (And ‘Black Panther’ made $1.3 million and that was a solo movie.)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Marvel also includes deals with its star to earn even more money if the movies make over a certain amount.

However, this sort of information isn’t meant to be public knowledge.  A Marvel spokesperson issued a statement saying:

“Marvel Studios disputes the accuracy of these numbers, and as a matter of policy, we never publicly disclose salaries or deal terms.”

Captain America: Civil War

‘Black Widow’ does not yet have a release date, but is moving along briskly.  Cate Shortland (‘Lore’) will direct, with a script by Jac Schaeffer (‘The Hustle’) based on a treatment by Nicole Perlman (‘Guardians of the Galaxy’).  It is believed that ‘Black Widow’ will delve into the character’s past and her spy training in the Russian “Red Room.”

That will mark Johansson’s eighth appearance as super spy Natasha Romanoff.  She will next appear in ‘Avengers 4’ to be released on May 3rd, 2019.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter