Robert Downey Jr’s wild Doomsday salary has been revealed and it breaks a Marvel record

We all knew getting Robert Downey Jr. back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe would not come cheap. But even by these standards, his reported salary for Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars is eye-watering – if true, it’s quite literally record-breaking. 

Downey Jr.’s turn as Tony Stark in 2008’s Iron Man is where the MCU really began, and across the following 11 years, he became the face of the franchise. 

His character appeared in 10 Marvel films before his emotional death in Avengers: Endgame, and by that point, Downey Jr. had become the MCU’s highest paid actor by far. 

Everyone thought his journey had ended at that point, alongside the main Avengers. But following a series of box office flops, Kevin Feige thought it’s time to bring in (or back) the big guns. 

Rather than bringing Stark back from the dead, at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that Downey Jr. will be taking on the role of Doctor Doom for two new Avengers movies. 

How much is Robert Downey Jr. being paid for Doomsday and Secret Wars?

As said, this wasn’t a cheap decision. Ahead of Doomsday’s release in December this year, sources told Page Six that Downey Jr. is allegedly earning an eye-watering $100 million to star in the Russo brothers’ two films.

To put that into perspective, the nine-figure payday would make Downey Jr. the highest-paid actor in Marvel history and comfortably the biggest salary ever reported for a superhero movie. 

His previous MCU high was an estimated $20 million baseline for Infinity War and Endgame, which jumped up to an estimated $75 million through profit participation. 

A guaranteed $100 million deal would comfortably surpass those upfront earnings by a long shot, and would even beat the record in movie history. 

Right now, the highest base salary was made by Keanu Reeves, who earned a reported $30 million for his role in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. This bumped up to $156 million thanks to lucrative backend profit-sharing points.

There’s no reason Downey Jr. couldn’t make the same or more depending on his contract.

Interestingly, the deal may not stop with Doomsday and Secret Wars. One source told Page Six that Downey Jr.’s nine-figure agreement could cover more than just the two films, with the possibility of a cameo elsewhere in the MCU.

The outlet suggested Ryan Gosling’s recently announced Ghost Rider, although that’s pure speculation at this stage. 

The question now is how much Marvel is going to be shelling out for the rest of the Doomsday cast. 

Here are just some of the actors who’ll be reprising their roles for the film: Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Pedro Pascal, Paul Rudd, Anthony Mackie, Florence Pugh, Channing Tatum, Simu Liu, Ian McKellen, Tom Hiddleston, James Marsden, Patrick Stuart, Sebastian Stan and Letitia Wright… and that’s not even the full list. 

Sources said the budget for both films is $600 million. Exactly how much of this is spent on the rest of the cast is under wraps for now, but if Downey Jr.’s reported payday is anything to go by, Marvel isn’t cutting corners.

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