A scale film role pays $1,246 a day under the SAG-AFTRA theatrical agreement. Documented star deals for the same job run to $90 million. Everything between those two numbers is negotiated individually, and the disclosed salaries we track show exactly how that ladder gets built, deal by deal.
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The floor: SAG-AFTRA scale
Every union film job has a legal minimum. For July 2025 through June 2026, that is $1,246 per day or $4,326 per week. A four-week supporting part at the weekly rate pays about $17,300 before an agent's commission. Working actors with real credits do not stay at scale for long: they typically negotiate two to five times scale once they have a body of work an agent can point to.
What documented star salaries actually look like
Above the working-actor tier, pay becomes an individually negotiated deal, and most of those numbers never become public. The ones that have leaked, been confirmed in court, or been reported by trade outlets are the clearest window into how the top of the market actually moves.
| Year | Actor | Film | Reported pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Dustin Hoffman | Tootsie | $5.5 million |
| 1988 | Bruce Willis | Die Hard | $5 million |
| 1996 | Jim Carrey | The Cable Guy | $20 million |
| 2000 | Julia Roberts | Erin Brockovich | $20 million |
| 2003 | Johnny Depp | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl | $10 million |
| 2011 | Johnny Depp | Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides | $55 million |
| 2013 | Sandra Bullock | Gravity | ~$70 million |
| 2017 | Johnny Depp | Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales | ~$90 million |
| 2019 | Robert Downey Jr. | Avengers: Endgame | ~$75 million |
| 2021 | Scarlett Johansson | Black Widow | $20 million |
| 2021 | Leonardo DiCaprio | Don't Look Up | $30 million |
| 2021 | Jennifer Lawrence | Don't Look Up | $25 million |
| 2023 | Margot Robbie | Barbie | ~$50 million |
A few of these carry documented structure worth knowing. Depp's $55 million for On Stranger Tides reportedly broke down as a $35 million base plus $20 million in bonuses, close to 14.5% of the film's take. Bullock's Gravity deal, per The Hollywood Reporter, paired a $20 million upfront fee with 15% of first-dollar gross. Downey's Endgame total reportedly combined a $20 million salary with about $55 million from an 8% first-dollar backend, per Forbes. Johansson's $20 million for Black Widow was confirmed publicly by Disney during her release-window lawsuit over the film's simultaneous streaming debut. Robbie's Barbie deal, per Variety, was a $12.5 million salary plus box office bonuses that pushed the total toward $50 million.
Three ways a studio actually pays a star
Almost every deal in that table falls into one of three structures. The first is a flat upfront fee, the model that runs from scale up through quotes north of $20 million, paid regardless of how the film performs. The second is an upfront fee against first-dollar gross backend, the Bullock and Downey structure, where the backend dwarfs the salary once the film actually hits. The third is the streaming flat fee: no backend exists because there is no box office gross to split, so upfront quotes rose to compensate, which is the structure behind the DiCaprio and Lawrence numbers on Don't Look Up.
Why the range spans roughly 70,000 times over
The gap between $1,246 a day and a reported $90 million payday comes down to negotiating power, and that power comes from opening-weekend draw. Only a handful of names can move enough tickets on their own to justify a studio betting tens of millions of dollars before a single frame is shot. Everyone else, including plenty of working actors with long careers, negotiates from a much weaker position and lands somewhere between scale and a few million dollars a picture.
Net points versus gross points
Backend deals are not all equal. Net points, a share of a film's profit after the studio deducts its own expenses, are notorious in the industry for shrinking to nearly nothing once studio accounting runs its course. First-dollar gross points are what stars actually fight for in negotiation, because they pay out on revenue before the studio subtracts anything, which is why Bullock's and Downey's backend numbers turned into some of the largest single paydays on this list.
How we model the undisclosed roles
Most film salaries are never made public. Our actor profiles model the pay for undisclosed roles using this disclosure table as a reference, matching by era and production budget to estimate what a comparable deal likely paid. You can see the full model applied across a career on Johnny Depp's profile and Leonardo DiCaprio's profile, and the underlying assumptions are laid out on our methodology page.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does an unknown actor make per movie?
At SAG-AFTRA scale, that is $1,246 per day or $4,326 per week for July 2025 through June 2026. A supporting part shot over four weeks pays about $17,300 at the weekly rate before an agent's cut.
Who got the biggest single-movie paycheck ever?
Johnny Depp's reported total for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales in 2017 was about $90 million including backend, the largest figure in our disclosure table. Robert Downey Jr.'s reported $75 million for Avengers: Endgame, built on a $20 million upfront fee plus roughly $55 million from an 8% first-dollar backend, is close behind.
Do actors get paid if a movie flops?
The upfront salary is paid regardless of how the film performs. Backend pay is different: first-dollar gross points only pay out once the film actually earns, so a flop can leave a star with just the base fee while a hit turns that same base fee into a fraction of a much larger total.
How much do actors make for streaming movies?
Streaming deals are typically a flat upfront fee with no backend, since there is no box office gross to split. Reported A-list leads have taken $25 million to $30 million for streaming films, a range that theatrical backend deals can reach only if the movie is a hit.