There is often a debate in progress about the pay gap in Hollywood.
Patricia Arquette mentioned it in her Oscars acceptance speech, Jennifer Lawrence recently penned a mini-essay about the subject, where she revealed the she, an Academy Award-winning actress and the current highest paid actress in the business, was underpaid in comparison to her male co-stars by a margin spanning of a couple of million dollars.
Which is why this latest news out of Marvel is pleasing – to say the least.
In a report, pop culture website WhatCulture revealed the hefty pay packs received by all the actors in the latest comic book blockbuster, The Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The movie, which revolves around a ragtag team of superheroes, stars six superheroes fighting to save the world.
Of course, because the movie was concocted in the depths of Hollywood, only one of the six is a woman – Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow.
But it was surprising to learn that Johansson’s lone female character actually out-earned four out of five of her male co-stars by a significant margin.
The tally, posted to What Culture, reveals that the line-up looks something like this:
Robert Downey Jr. $40 million (45 minutes screen time)
Scarlett Johansson $20 million (33 minutes screen time)
Chris Evans $6.9 million (50 minutes screen time)
Jeremy Renner $6.1 million (19 minutes screen time)
Chris Hemsworth $5.4 million (14 minutes screen time)
Mark Ruffalo $2.8 million (23 minutes screen time)
It come as no surprise that Robert Downey Jr., who is currently sitting up the top as the highest paid actor in Hollywood, is leading the way with $40 million, but it is surprising that Scarlett is next up on the block considering that she’s the only one of the characters without her own movie, and didn’t top the screen time.
Captain America’s Chris Evans, who has lead two of his own solo movies, and appeared in the most scenes for the longest time, only got $6.8 million, $38.5 million less than Robert Downey Jr., who appeared in fewer scenes for less time.
Robert Downey Jr. is expected to earn $50 million for the next Avengers film, Captain America: Civil War.
