Amid Underpaid Actors' Strike, Dwayne Johnson Reportedly Gets the Biggest Actor Paycheck in History
Sources reveal that The Rock's next movie paid him the most a single actor has ever received for a single movie, and the sum they named is simply mind-blowing.
Hollywood is famously home to insane checks and royalties: the A-listers of the industry deal in tens of millions of dollars per movie, and things have been this way for years. Not for the less-known actors, though — those guys are lucky if they get paid, and this is one of the reasons why the Actor's Guild joined the strike recently.
Now that the American movie industry is basically facing a complete and utter halt due to the double strike of writers and actors striving for fair payment, the news about Dwayne Johnson hits a bit different than a week ago. The man is known to be one of the highest-earning actors in Hollywood but this is definitely the next level.
According to sources of Puck News, The Rock's salary for his next movie, Red One, is set to break the world record. In this Christmas comedy, Dwayne Johnson plays Callum Drift, the Commander of the E.L.F., and this lead role reportedly pays $50M!
For comparison, the previous record was set at $40M per role and shared between Robert Downey Jr. and Will Smith for their lead roles in Captain America: Civil War and King Richard, respectively. While King Richard only came out in 2021, Civil War was released in 2016, making Downey Jr. set as the previous record-breaker.
But add 25% to that and you get the new record as The Rock storms right to the very top of the rating with his whopping $50M for the role in Red One. However, we have quite a funny theory explaining how the former WWE fighter managed to bag such a phenomenally-paying gig for himself.
The thing is, this movie, Red One, is produced by Seven Bucks Productions — the company that belongs to… Dwayne Johnson himself. Now, we're not saying that someone really wanted to hold the world record and basically gave the award to himself, but if that someone wanted, he could totally do that. Winky face.
Source: Puck News via The Direct