It's a well-known film today, but even when Double Jeopardy came out in 1999, audiences were apparently impressed. The movie, starring Ashley Judd, also featured Tommy Lee Jones, Bruce Greenwood, and Annabeth Gish—but Judd's performance inarguably resulted in the movie's staggering success. She wasn't exactly a household name at the time but seemed to be on her way up.

The movie was far from Judd's first, but it might have helped propel her career to new heights. The thing is, her pay for the film wasn't great, which led to speculation that a wage gap was to blame. Looking back, the film did give Ashley negotiating power, but her earnings—at a tiny fraction of her film's gross earnings—set the stage for wage discussions that are still happening more than two decades later.

Double Jeopardy Was A Box Office Hit

Double Jeopardy's premise might have been what drew audiences to the theater back in 1999. The story of a woman, wrongly convicted of her still-alive husband's murder, tracks him down—intending to commit the crime she was already convicted of (and reunite with her son, of course).

Admittedly, the crime thriller did receive mixed reviews from critics (doesn't every great film?). A common complaint was that double jeopardy doesn't really work that way; Judd's character Libby was wrongly convicted the first time around, which would more or less be an "oops" on the part of the legal system.

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For the second "murder," Libby likely would have been arrested and charged, but later acquitted since she ultimately acted in self-defense.

Those criticisms didn't faze audiences though; ticket sales spoke for themselves; stats show that the movie grossed $177 million worldwide; that's the equivalent of more than $300 million in 2023.

Ashley Judd, however, didn't see nearly that much money after putting the work in on set.

Ashley Judd's Pay For Double Jeopardy Was Abysmal

Ashley Judd as Libby in Double Jeopardy
Paramount

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In 2000, the year after Double Jeopardy premiered and was labeled a success, the New York Post published a reflection on the film, Judd's earnings, and similar earnings of other actors around that time (and their films' earnings).

Apparently, Ashley Judd was paid $1 million for her work on Double Jeopardy. Her next film, Someone Like You (referred to as Animal Husbandry, the book that inspired the film, by the NY Post) promised $4 million. The film co-starred Hugh Jackman, and while it wasn't as much of a hit as Double Jeopardy, Judd likely didn't mind, given the pay bump.

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Yet other actresses around the same era were being paid anywhere from $10 million (Cameron Diaz, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Sandra Bullock, to name a few) to $20 million (Julia Roberts and Demi Moore) per film.

NY Post laid out a claim that women were being underpaid in Hollywood at that time, comparing those salaries to those of hit male actors.

The publication elaborated, "Among the flop gang from 1999 are such mega-earners as Jim Carrey, Kevin Costner and Arnold Schwarzenegger, each of whom put out a movie that grossed less than $65 million. And this despite their compensation being about $20 million each."

The wage gap discussion is nothing new, but at the time, many critics suggested the wage difference was an economic issue, not a gender one.

Regardless, Ashley continued to take on projects, growing her career and her earnings; today, the actress is worth about $14 million.

Not Every Film (Or Actor) Is A Mega-Earner

Julia Roberts at the Los Angeles Premiere Of ‘Ticket To Paradise' held at Regency Village Theatre
Via: Instar

Not every film becomes a box office hit, but not every actor earns a huge payday, either. It's easy to see that actors' earnings vary widely based on their time in the industry, the number (and type) of films under their belt, plus the projected popularity of the project.

After all, no one expects a box office flop to earn an actor hundreds of millions. Yet it's happened; Julia Roberts made a cool $1M for a film that flopped, and Sylvester Stallone routinely took home paydays larger than his flops' gross earnings and, sometimes, their production budgets.

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So when it comes to determining whether Ashley Judd missed out on the money because she's a woman or simply because the film didn't come out at the right time or charm critics enough, it's hard to guess.

What does seem to be fact is that Ashley was almost closed out of Hollywood after making claims against Harvey Weinstein. Ashley never really stopped acting, but her career seemed to fizzle out.

Her net worth isn't as impressive as other stars from her heyday, and in fact, is less than some of those actresses made from a single film.

It's never been argued, however, that Ashley Judd isn't talented, even if her pay was abysmally low for big feature films.