Robert Downey Jr's Deal To Play Doctor Doom In Avengers Is Reportedly "Significantly More" Than $80 MILLION And Includes A Private Jet, Dedicated Security, And A Full Trailer Encampment On Set
Jesse Grant. Getty Images.Variety- After a bruising year, Marvel is returning to the very things that worked in the past. That means reuniting with franchise crown jewel Robert Downey Jr. as well as the Russo brothers, who directed the two most successful movies for the studio with “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame.”
But bringing back key members of the old gang won’t come cheap. Sources say Marvel is plunking down $80 million for Anthony and Joe Russo to direct “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars” and “significantly more” for Downey to tackle uber-villain Doctor Doom in the two tentpoles. The Russos’ deal doesn’t include back-end compensation, but it does contain performance escalators that kick in at the $750 million and $1 billion thresholds. The brothers also will produce the two films via their AGBO banner. That marks something of a departure for Marvel, which typically doesn’t work with outside producers, preferring to keep the team in house.
For Downey, who helped catapult Marvel into a money-printing machine thanks to his turn as Tony Stark in the first “Iron Man” film in 2008, his deal also is filled with perks that include private jet travel, dedicated security and a whole “trailer encampment” for the newly minted Oscar winner. (Downey took home this year’s best supporting actor honors for his role in “Oppenheimer.”)
Let this be a lesson to the kids out there. The only thing more valuable than being the face of the biggest cash printing superhero franchise in movie history is being the face of the biggest cash printing superhero franchise in movie history after that movie studio completely bungles the five years following your departure and comes crawling back with its little mouse tail between its legs asking you to fix everything.
Back when RDJ was revealed to be Doctor Doom, I said that he was probably promised the money from The Magic Kingdom's parking lot for the rest of his life. But hitting somewhere in the extremely high eight figure salary range is probably the next best thing when you throw in a PJ, security to keep the supernerd stalkers away, and a work trailer that probably makes Stark Tower look like the Barstool New York office. Actually that may be a little tough on Stark Tower since I guarantee the WiFi works there.
Anyway, I'm obviously thrilled for Robert Downey Jr. even with my reservations about how well this entire plan may work. $80 million may seem like a lot for a year of work, but Cade Cunningham will probably be making that in a season after his rookie deal is up and he didn't play a role in Infinity War, Endgame, or any billion dollar movies let alone a Pistons team that finished higher than dead last in its division.
Everyone keeps talking about how Jonathan Majors dropped the bag by being a fucking moron. So Disney picked up that bag, loaded it with a bunch of Mickey Money along with I'm sure some pretty awesome sweeteners even we don't know about, and now we have a big bad for our next Avengers movie before we (hopefully) get a hard reset that leads to a single universe with all our favorite Marvel characters after Secret Wars, including a long-term Doctor Doom played by an actor who didn't just spend a decade locked in the superhero machine.
For muchhhhhh more on Doctor Doom as well as all the other MCU announcements from this weekend, check out a very special My Mom's Basement that opens with Robbie Fox breaking down how he proposed to Lady Fox, which was a massive W for nerds around the globe.
