For the second weekend in a row, Wonder Woman starring Gal Gadot was #1 at the box office both Domestic and Worldwide. The film has already brought in nearly $600 million ($573.5 million), and it only had a production budget of $149 million. DC Comics is sitting on over $424 million in profit right now and the movie has only been out two weeks. By the time Wonder Woman leaves theaters and moves to On-Demand rentals the studio could be looking at a billion dollar payday…But not Gal Gadot, she was practically paid in peanuts for her roles as the star heroine.
Gal Gadot‘s salary for Wonder Woman was inked long before anyone knew this movie would be such a success. When Gal Gadot signed on to play the Wonder Woman character she signed 3 contracts, ones for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman, and Justice League. For each of those films, she agreed to be paid $300,000, making a grand total of $900,000 across the three projects. $300,000 is nothing to scoff at, and it’s a hell of a payday for people like you or me. But when you’re the lead actress in a film that’s already brought in over $424 million in profit and you only got paid $300,000 then the contract negotiation was historically bad.
Eventually, **we hope**, there will be a Wonder Woman sequel. For that film, Gal Gadot will likely make a fortune and get paid in the range of $15-25 million. Her problem right now is the next film in this series, the de-facto ‘sequel’ to Wonder Woman, is Justice League and she’s already contracted at $300,000 for that movie so she won’t get paid for years to come…It is possible that she gets some lucrative bonuses from the studio to make nice on their box office success, but that’s just speculation at this point.
This isn’t the first time a superhero has gotten hosed in salary negotiations. Chris Evans, the actor who plays Captain America, was only paid $300,000 for his first film in that role.