Last week, Puck.new revealed that for Netflix’s upcoming sequel to “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” titled “The Adventures of Cliff Booth,” Brad Pitt is set to earn a staggering $40 million. It’s the largest base salary film payday of his entire career. Puck also revealed that director David Fincher is earning $20 million to direct, while Quentin Tarantino was paid north of $20 million simply to license his script and characters for the project. Oh, and as a fun aside, Quentin will eventually own the movie personally. So, in essence, Quentin is getting paid $20 million for someone to make a movie that he’ll own and get to resell in a decade without having to lift a finger. Not bad!
On paper, that $40 million payday is a career high for Pitt, a two-time Oscar winner who has been an A-list leading man for more than three decades.
But here’s the twist. It’s not even the biggest salary in the streaming era.
That record belongs to Daniel Craig, who holds the record… TWICE.
Today, we compiled a list of the 18 largest known streaming paydays. In fairness, some of these films still had brief theatrical releases. Others are pure streaming plays, where actors are paid blockbuster money for films that never sell a single ticket. Here they are:
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ActorSalaryFilmPlatform#1: Daniel Craig$100,000,000Glass Onion / Wake Up Dead ManNetflix#2: Denzel Washington$60,000,000The Little ThingsHBO Max/WB#3: Will Smith$60,000,000King RichardHBO Max/WB#4: Brad Pitt$40,000,000The Adventures of Cliff BoothNetflix#5: Will Smith$35,000,000EmancipationApple#6: George Clooney$35,000,000WolfsApple#7: Leonardo DiCaprio$30,000,000Don’t Look UpNetflix#8: Ryan Reynolds$27,000,0006 UndergroundNetflix#9: Jennifer Lawrence$25,000,000Don’t Look UpNetflix#10: Julia Roberts$25,000,000*Leave the World BehindNetflix#11: Mark Wahlberg$25,000,000Play DirtyAmazon#12: Dwayne Johnson$20,000,000Red NoticeNetflix#13: Ryan Gosling$20,000,000The Gray ManNetflix#14: Chris Hemsworth$20,000,000Extraction 2Netflix#15: Cameron Diaz$20,000,000Back in ActionNetflix#16: Adam Sandler$20,000,000Murder Mystery 2Netflix#17: Michael B. Jordan$15,000,000Without RemorseAmazon#18: Eddie Murphy$15,000,000Beverly Hills Cop: Axel FNetflixThe Daniel Craig “Knives Out” Jackpot
When Daniel Craig signed on to reprise his role as Benoit Blanc for two “Knives Out” sequels, Netflix didn’t just pay him like a traditional leading man. They paid him like the movie was already a global smash hit.
Netflix reportedly shelled out $450 million to acquire the rights to the sequels, with roughly $100 million of that earmarked for Craig alone. That works out to about $50 million per film, making it the largest guaranteed payday ever for a streaming role.
The $60 Million Pandemic Windfalls
The second biggest entries on this list came from a moment that will likely never be repeated.
In late 2020, Warner Bros. made the unprecedented decision to release its entire 2021 theatrical slate simultaneously on HBO Max. That meant stars who had negotiated backend deals tied to box office performance suddenly saw their upside vanish overnight.
So the studio wrote enormous checks to make them whole.
Denzel Washington and Will Smith were the biggest beneficiaries.
Both actors likely earned around $20 million upfront for “The Little Things” and “King Richard.” After the HBO Max decision, each received an additional roughly $40 million “make-good” payment.
That brought their total paydays to around $60 million each.
For two movies that, under normal circumstances, may or may not have generated meaningful box office profits.
It was less a negotiation and more a bailout.
The “Wolfs” Trade-Off: Pay Cuts That Didn’t Pay Off
The deal for “Wolfs” starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt highlights a different kind of shift.
According to multiple reports, both actors actually agreed to take less money upfront than they could have commanded. The trade-off was supposed to be a wide theatrical release, giving them a chance to benefit from traditional box office success and backend participation.
Even with that “discount,” both still earned around $35 million each.
Then Apple changed its strategy.
Instead of a wide theatrical rollout, the company scaled the release back to a brief, limited run before sending the film to streaming.
In other words, Clooney and Pitt gave up guaranteed money in exchange for theatrical upside… and then the theatrical upside largely disappeared. Whoops.
What About The Rock?
One of the most eye-popping omissions from the traditional streaming narrative is Dwayne Johnson’s $50 million payday for “Red One.” Unlike the pandemic-era windfalls earned by Denzel Washington and Will Smith, this wasn’t a make-good or a backend replacement. It was negotiated that way from the start. Amazon reportedly had to meet Johnson’s full blockbuster rate upfront because the film’s economics were driven more by streaming value than box office upside, even though it ultimately received a wide theatrical release.