Black Widow in Age of Ultron

Scarlett Johansson Is 2018’s Highest-Paid Actress With $40.5 Million

Black Widow banked a pretty penny over the past 12 months. According to Forbes, Scarlett Johansson earned just over $40 million to make her 2018's highest-paid actress.

La La Land‘s Emma Stone is no longer perched at the top of the charts.

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Per Forbes, Avengers: Infinity War actress Scarlett Johansson collected $40.5 million in pre-tax earnings between June 1st, 2017 and June 1st, 2018, which is almost twice that of her nearest competitor, Angelina Jolie (Maleficent), who lifted approximately $28 million during the same period.

Third place goes to former Friends star Jennifer Aniston ($19.5 million), who continues to rake in the big bucks thanks to her endorsement of Emirates Airlines, Smartwater and Aveeno. There’s serious money to be made in advertising, after all, which helps explain why Jennifer Lawrence managed to clinch fourth despite her two most recent titles – namely Mother! and Red Sparrow – struggling to leave much of an impression at the box office.

Forbes didn’t disclose the actress’ pre-tax earnings between 2017 and 2018, though we can assume that her total paycheck fell in the region of $17M-$19M, given Reese Witherspoon placed fifth with $16.5 million.

The Legally Blonde star is expected to join Jennifer Aniston for Apple’s forthcoming drama series, for which the pair will earn an estimated $1.25 million per episode – a paycheck which harkens back to Aniston’s golden years on Friends.

Circling back to Scarlett Johansson, though, and the MCU mainstay will only continue to rake in the money, what with Avengers 4 slated for release in 2019, before Marvel finally begins devoting its attention to a standalone Black Widow movie, the latter of which is purportedly on course for a release in 2020, where it may well slip into the slot once occupied by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

As things stand, the cosmic threequel is still in search of a director now that Disney has officially closed the door on James Gunn… once and for all, it seems.


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