It took Ryan Reynolds a while to make it to the top of the A-list, but now that he’s climbed to the peak of the mountain, he’s not coming down for a long time. As well as his various extracurricular activities that span marketing, gin and now a soccer team, the 44 year-old is also one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, second to only his new BFF Dwayne Johnson.
A lot of that has to do with the success of the Deadpool franchise, of course, because prior to the Merc with a Mouth’s solo debut finally escaping development hell in 2016, the biggest live-action box office hit of his career was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in which he played a bit part and took tenth billing in the credits.
The irreverent comic book blockbuster proved that Reynolds was a hugely creative and influential presence on both sides of the camera having produced, starred and been heavily involved with the script, and that sort of oversight has now become a standard part of his contracts on virtually all of the dozen projects he’s got in development.
Of course, it’s also led to him being able to demand higher salaries and insider Daniel Richtman is claiming that the leading man is set to pocket $20 million for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Deadpool 3, which if anything sounds a little on the low side. After all, he picked up $27 million for Netflix’s 6 Underground and a further $20 million for the streamer’s Red Notice, neither of which had the benefit of back-end deals and profit participation clauses based on box office returns.
It’s still a far cry from the first Deadpool movie, though, where Reynolds was paid an upfront salary of $2 million, but he wound up going home with a lot more in bonuses after the R-rated romp hauled in over $780 million globally. In any case, the MCU’s stars always get the biggest paychecks looking at the annual list of the highest-paid names, and it seems it’ll be no different when Wade Wilson returns.
