Given that it’s the most successful movie franchise in box office history, it’s safe to say that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has earned a few bucks. Obviously it takes a lot of people to make epic superhero action films where entire multiverses are on the line, so that’s a whole lot of paychecks that have to come out of those earnings. That being said, it’s no big secret that the biggest of those paychecks go to studio heads, executive producers, and of course, the actors whose names are at the top of the cast lists. So just how much have those actors made?

It must be pointed out that actors’ movie salaries are rarely officially revealed to the public. At most, we have to rely on speculation from the most reliable sources we can find. With that in mind, we aren’t definitively promising that these 10 paychecks are actually the biggest ones any actor has received from any one MCU movie — they are just the largest for which there has been solid information put out there. 

In addition, these are only the upfront actor salaries for individual movies, and don’t include backend royalty deals or anything of that sort. Nor are these figures an accumulation of that actor’s entire MCU career or inclusive of extra money made by having producer credits. But they’re still nice paydays no matter what.

Brie Larson has definitely had an interesting career, and her transformation from sitcom star to “Captain Marvel” lead – with a handful of noteworthy cult hits and a 2016 Oscar win for “Room” in between — is certainly one to envy. 2019 was the year she dove headfirst into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Carol Danvers, with her “Captain Marvel” debut followed only a month later by her appearance in “Avengers: Endgame.” Larson also has the distinction of being the first female lead to get her own MCU film, with “Captain Marvel” joining a still unfortunately small club of female-led superhero movies in general.

The MCU’s initial approach when it brought new actors into the fold was to give them extremely modest upfront salaries for their solo debuts — some sources suggest that most of the Avengers only got six-figure paydays for their first outings, profit-sharing notwithstanding — with the promise that their salary would grow exponentially with subsequent films. However, by 2019, the MCU had already produced multiple movies with billion-dollar global box office hauls, so those debut paychecks got a bit more generous. The result is that Larson reportedly earned a very impressive $5 million up front for “Captain Marvel,” despite it being her very first MCU outing. 

When it comes to an actor’s highest individual Marvel Cinematic Universe payday, the majority of them come from either their appearance in “Avengers: Endgame” — which made multiple people millionaires just for showing up, more or less — or for a later installment in one of the non-“Avengers” series. For Chris Pratt, the highest of his known upfront salaries for a single MCU movie is an example of the latter. The actor is said to have earned $7 million when he played Peter Quill/Star-Lord in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” 

It’s important to note that “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” marked Pratt’s seventh time playing the character on screen, having done so in not only the two previous “Guardians” movies but also “Avengers: Infinity War,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “Thor: Love and Thunder,” and Disney+’s “The Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special.” Even if the upfront payouts for all of those films were less than $7 million, they surely all add up to an impressive total fortune that Pratt has made playing Star-Lord — to say nothing of any backend deals that were made in regards to profits. With two of those movies being in the billion-dollar club, even the most reserved of royalty deals Pratt might have made certainly paid out nicely for the actor. 

Those that weren’t already steeped in Marvel Comics lore probably didn’t expect much from Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) when the character made his debut in the 2016 origin movie bearing his name. So imagine how surprised more casual MCU watchers were when Doctor Strange became one of the most pivotal figures in the events of both Phase Three and Phase Four, from becoming the new mentor for Peter Parker (Tom Holland) to being one of the reasons the multiverse was not only revealed but got out of hand.

Speaking of the multiverse, Doctor Strange got one of the more creatively interesting MCU entries with his second solo movie, 2022’s horror-tinged “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” It pulled double duty by not only following up Doctor Strange’s story from “Spider-Man: No Way Home” but also the events of the Disney+ series “WandaVision” — setting up an epic showdown between Strange and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). 

It also set up Cumberbatch himself quite nicely, earning the actor a reported $7.5 million upfront salary for what was his sixth film appearance as the character, on top of voicing him for several episodes of the Disney+ animated series “What If…?”

While the MCU always had its lighter moments, it was during Phase Two that the franchise first allowed itself to build entire movies around a mix of action and comedy. Following “Guardians of the Galaxy” in that regard was 2015’s “Ant-Man,” which correctly calculated that the filmgoing audience was never going to accept an overly serious film about a guy who is, well, called Ant-Man.

Hammering home that approach was the casting of Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man, who had been in a few action movies but was typically the wisecracking pal or something similar. Rudd has since not only led an entire action series, but one that earned $1.6 billion total at the box office. But it isn’t any of the “Ant-Man” movies that earned Rudd his highest known individual payday. That distinction actually belongs to his appearance in “Avengers: Endgame,” where Rudd reportedly brought home a whopping $8 million up front. 

Rudd already being two movies deep on his own solo series probably helped, as did the fact that he also co-wrote those two films. Being a credited writer on an Marvel Studios entry is a distinction that Rudd had all to himself until Ryan Reynolds officially joined the MCU with “Deadpool and Wolverine” (on which Reynolds is a credited co-writer). Someone who can both lead and also write hugely successful movies within a franchise is definitely someone you want to keep happy, and big paydays go a long way toward that. 

Although Spider-Man had been played previously by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in five non-MCU outings, the character made his official Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in the form of Tom Holland for his introduction in 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War.”

Holland’s first standalone Spidey outing would come in 2017 with “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” launching what would become the most profitable individual MCU series to date outside of the “Avengers” films. This meant a reported $10 million upfront payday for Holland for his third entry, “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the third highest-grossing MCU movie at the worldwide box office behind only “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame.” 

Despite the concussion Holland suffered on the set of 2026’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which welcomed him into the club of actors who were injured on MCU movies, it’s likely he made even more money for that one. Disney would certainly do well to keep Holland happy, as he is one of a dwindling number of OG Avengers who are still actively involved in the MCU. And at only 29 years old at the time of this writing, he is also young enough to reasonably stick around for many years to come and play Spider-Man as he ages. 

It took the creative team behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe a phase or two to really put him to good use, but Jeremy Renner still soon found himself in the eight-figure payday club during one of his outings as Clint Barton/Hawkeye. Renner reportedly hit the bullseye by scoring a $15 million salary for playing Hawkeye in “Avengers: Endgame,” which gave the actor a chance to really showcase his formidable dramatic acting chops in some of that movie’s most powerful non-battlefield scenes.

$15 million plus whatever royalty deals Renner must have signed for “Endgame” — to say nothing of what he earned throughout his MCU tenure — has to feel pretty satisfying for someone whose first paid acting gig was playing criminals in police training videos.

Renner is also the kind of actor that knows his worth and isn’t going to settle for less. He famously turned down an offer to reprise his role for Season 2 of the Disney+ series “Hawkeye,” claiming he was only offered half of what he made for Season 1. However, in September 2025, Renner stated that he would be happy to do “Hawkeye” Season 2, reaffirming his love for the character — though he didn’t say that any official talks were happening, nor is it even certain as of now whether or not a Season 2 ends up happening at all.

Before accepting the role, Chris Evans had one major worry about playing Steve Rogers/Captain America — that it would mean he could no longer live as private a life as he had been able to up to that point. Whether he deems the sacrifice worth it in retrospect, he played the so-called First Avenger from the character’s initial solo movie all the way through Steve’s touching farewell in “Avengers: Endgame.” The fact that Evans took home an upfront payday for “Endgame” said to have been between $15 and $20 million surely has to go a long way toward soothing whatever regrets the actor might have for becoming one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

Despite fans being utterly convinced that Evans will indeed play Cap in some capacity in “Avengers: Doomsday,” the actor continues to deny that he’s reprising the role for that or any other movie. But the fact that he showed up in “Deadpool and Wolverine,” to play his version of Johnny Storm/Human Torch from the 2000s “Fantastic Four” films, definitely suggests that he’s a “never say never” type of actor in terms of revisiting old roles if the right opportunity presents itself. It seems like a pretty safe bet that Evans will don Captain America’s stars and stripes at least one more time, even if it’s in a fun cameo akin to his role in “Deadpool and Wolverine,” but another “Endgame”-sized payday would certainly go a long way in convincing him. 

Given that Thor became popular enough to lead four solo MCU movies — still a rare feat that even Iron Man never got to do — it’s easy to forget how risky it felt at first to give the character his own movie to begin with. Thor was the least-known Avenger to the mainstream filmgoing audience; he has the most fantastical powers and backstory of any of the OG Avengers; and he was being played by an actor who was the least famous of any of the first batch of MCU leads — at least outside of his native Australia. 

But Chris Hemsworth is indeed a full-fledged Hollywood A-lister now, one who joined the vaunted $20 million club when he reportedly took that home for the fourth “Thor” film. There are things about “Thor: Love and Thunder” that really upset fans, and Hemsworth himself has since said the comedic elements were taken a little too far for that entry. Still, even if that wasn’t the best “Thor” film nor Hemsworth’s best performance as the character, he had more than earned a paycheck of that size, given all he had done to help build the MCU and to sell people on a character who was a literal god with magical powers.

Sure, there is plenty of that in the MCU now — but in those early days, the MCU was still fairly grounded, with the bulk of the “magic” coming by way of Stark family scientific breakthroughs. Thor’s magical hammer walked so that Wanda Maximoff, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel could run. 

As is far too often the case with female characters, the Marvel Cinematic Universe didn’t always make the best choices with Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) in the early days. Whether she was diminished into a shallow femme fatale type of character, given an awkwardly contrived romance subplot with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), or forced to stand in a position that no human being would stand in just so she could be rear end-first on movie posters, it all smacked of a bunch of men who didn’t know what else to do with a woman superhero.

The fact that it took 11 whole years after her debut in “Iron Man 2” for Natasha to finally get her “Black Widow” movie in 2021 only speaks further to how much better the MCU should have done by her. The fact that Johansson made $20 million for that movie probably eased some of those sour feelings she might have had about her character not always getting the respect she deserved. 

Unfortunately, that celebration was short-lived, since Johansson brought a lawsuit against Disney alleging that the company brought “Black Widow” to Disney+ too quickly and thus limited the movie’s box office potential — for which Johansson stood to receive bonuses based on its performance. While the lawsuit was settled and the terms of the deal kept private, some estimates suggest it ultimately doubled her initial $20 million. And that doesn’t include whatever royalties she had already received for the $380 million worldwide box office of “Black Widow.”

Jon Favreau often doesn’t get the credit he deserves for how much he helped to establish the tone of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As the director of “Iron Man,” he laid the groundwork for how the MCU was going to look and feel. Plus, he went to bat for Robert Downey Jr. to play the lead in the film, and it’s hard to overstate what an impact Downey’s performance and presence has had on the MCU as a whole. 

Downey has gotten very, very wealthy from the MCU. He is said to have made at least $75 million for “Avengers: Endgame” alone, from his upfront salary plus the deal he negotiated for backend royalty payments from the movie’s incredible box office performance. It’s been reported that he had similar deals in place for most of his MCU films, earning very healthy royalties on the success of the movies. It’s also been speculated that he’s already got similar deals in place for his return to the MCU in “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars.”

But when it comes to just upfront payments, Downey reportedly took home $20 million for “Avengers: Endgame” long before box office figures came into the equation. It’s not a stretch to assume that the payouts for his previous films — which came after it was apparent that the MCU was a cash cow and that he was the de facto main character of said cash cow — got pretty close to that as well. It is estimated that Downey has made at least half a billion dollars just on his MCU tenure alone, to say nothing of a very prolific acting career outside of it.