Though Robert Pattinson will be playing billionaire Bruce Wayne, his actual salary for The Batman won’t be anywhere near the net worth of Gotham’s most popular playboy. In fact, the Twilight star may not even make as much as one of his onscreen foes.
The extent to which this decision is a call back to the days of Tim Burton’s Batman films, in which the villain performer (Jack Nicholson) had more notoriety than that of the Caped Crusader (Michael Keaton), is unclear. But from what we can tell, Jonah Hill, the multi-time Academy Award-nominated actor who’s being eyed to play Batsy’s next foe, was or is still demanding $10 million for his involvement – an insane fact, as Variety’s Justin Kroll pointed out on Twitter, given “Rob isn’t making half that.”
For those of us who’ve had the fortune of learning basic mathematics, that statement puts Pattinson’s earnings in the highly-anticipated DC film below $5 million.
According to a 1993 EW article, Keaton was offered a contract for $15 million to play the role in what would later become Batman Forever. Of course, he declined the part, and Val Kilmer went on to take over the cape. But the point is, nearly 30 years later, for a superhero actor to be paid under $5 million, especially in the wake of Avengers: Endgame (which saw Robert Downey Jr. with a fat, $75 million paycheck), is staggering.
With that said, we don’t know the exact details of Pattinson’s contract. It could be like the Iron Man performer’s, where he could turn a profit on the film’s box office performance. But we won’t know for sure until The Batman hits theaters on June 25, 2021.
In the meantime, be sure to check out Pattinson’s wholly committed performance in Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse on October 18th.
