Marvel/Disney will need to pay Robert Downey Jr. more than $100 million for those two ‘Avengers’ movies, and that’s not even counting box office bonuses. Puck’s Matt Belloni sees this as “basically an admission that Marvel was in a pretty rough spot.” Downey’s contract is said to include private jets, personal security and a trailer encampment
Downey’s “Avengers: Endgame” salary was only $20 million, though he wound up making a reported $75 million with bonuses — the same as he did on “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Iron Man 3”.
It’s quite clear that “Avengers: Doomsday,” although filled with recurrent characters, will have Downey as the main attraction. This is a major gamble that could very well pay off. We’ll see. It might all depend on how well “The Fantastic Four” does given that they play a major part in ‘Doomsday.’
Based on Variety’s estimates, Downey has so far made $500-$600M starring in MCU movies. So, it’s not like he really needed the money, and his contract stipulated that he would only sign on to these films if Joe and Anthony Russo came back to direct.
Speaking of The Russos, they are set to earn about $40 million per movie between them and that’s before box office bonuses kick in (via TheInSneider). Ever since leaving the MCU, they’ve had their own struggles, having helmed critically panned films (“Cherry,” “The Gray Man”). They also have the upcoming Netflix sci-fi epic “The Electric State,” which has had its budget balloon to well over $300M.
Between Downey and The Russos’ salary, that’s already $100M added into the budget for each one of these ‘Avengers’ films. Can you just imagine how much it’s all going to cost? Not to mention having to bring back other high-salaried actors like Tom Holland (Spider-Man), Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and many more.
This could be the gamble to end all gambles as far as Kevin Feige and the MCU are concerned. ‘Avengers 5’ is set to start production in March 2025 and will be released in May 2026.