Paul Walter Hauser played the villainous role of Mole Man in the film, which had a budget of $US229 million and earned more than $US500 million at the global box office upon its release last year. For his supporting role, Hauser told Vulture he was paid “two or three hundred thousand bucks.”It might have been a vague starting figure, but Hauser got more specific as he broke down where much of that money went. “Then [there’s] taxes, agent 10%, manager 10%, lawyer 10%, I give 5% to a business manager, and then I grew up in the church so I’m always tithing something … I’ll give away some money to someone who needs it. At the end of the day, what looked like $250k is a lot closer to $136,000,” he revealed. Hauser noted that while “that’s still a lot of money by anyone’s metric,” “it’s not going to set you up for life.” He explained that that was one reason he’s such a prolific actor: His film breakthrough came with a supporting role in the 2017 movie I, Tonya, and since then he’s amassed more than 25 on-screen movie credits in under a decade.
According to IMDB, he has another six future projects currently filming or in post-production. “There’s a reason I do a s**t ton of movies and it’s because I have to keep doing them,” Hauser said, “as I’m not getting paid on a Springsteen or a Fantastic Four what I’m getting paid on The Luckiest Man in America or Balls Up.” Hauser had a supporting in last year’s rock biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, while in 2024’s The Luckiest Man in America and this year’s Balls Up, he’s listed as a lead, with his face on the poster. Ultimately, the character actor said he understood his salary for a film would be dictated by whether or not he was a lead or a supporting player. “If I’m starring in a movie – indie or studio – then I demand a certain salary. When I’m doing a supporting role I can back down and know that they only have so much money to play with,” he said. Marvel salaries: How Hauser stacks up Paul Walter Hauser’s estimated salary of “two or three hundred thousand bucks” for The Fantastic Four: First Steps pales in comparison to the mega-buck salaries taken home by some of the stars leading Marvel franchises.
A 2019 article in The Hollywood Reporter claimed that Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr, makes the most money out of any Marvel actor. Sources told THR Downey Jr negotiated “a unique financial arrangement” with Marvel Studio boss Kevin Feige, and he gets a percentage of box office grosses for each of the Avengers movies.
According to the same sources, the Iron Man star made at least $106 million from 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, and received $7 million for just three days of work on the 2017 film Spider-Man: Homecoming. Some other eye-watering Marvel salaries: Scarlett Johansson pocketed $28 million for 2021’s Black Widow, while Aussie Chris Hemsworth was paid between $21 to $28 million for each of the final two Avengers movies.