As moviegoers all over the world already know, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become such a colossal success that it can sometimes feel omnipresent in the film world. However, the thing that a lot of people seem to forget is that making 2008’s Iron Man was a massive risk that could have resulted in Marvel losing the film rights to many of their beloved characters.
Of course, by the time Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame were being made, Marvel no longer had to worry about losing their characters if the movies failed. However, there was something the producers of those films definitely had to concern themselves with, the ballooning paycheques that the franchise’s biggest stars were demanding.
In addition to all of the salaries that Marvel’s returning stars were demanding for the last two Avengers film to date, producers also had to set aside some money for a new star. As the actor cast as Thanos, there is no doubt that Josh Brolin was going to pay an integral role in the success of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. That begs an obvious question, how much was Brolin paid for those two films?
The Cinematic Event Of A Lifetime
Over the last couple of decades, it has become increasingly common for the box office to be dominated by the latest release in a major film franchise. In fact, there have been so many event movies released these days that it no longer is all that exciting when a new Star Wars or Fast and Furious film is released.
On the other hand, when fans learned that Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame were set to be released, it would be an understatement to say moviegoers were excited. After all, those two films were the culmination of all the MCU movies and TV shows that had come out before them.
Brolin’s Big Bucks
After the release of Avengers: Infinity War, the masses seemed to be instantly fascinated by how huge the film’s story was. On top of being interested in how Marvel made such a massive tale come to life, a lot of MCU fans were very interested to learn how much the film’s main stars were paid for their starring roles. Thankfully for them, it didn’t take too long for a lot of information about the actor’s salaries to reportedly be revealed.
When it comes to Josh Brolin’s Avengers: Infinity War salary, it would have made sense if he was paid a fortune. After all, as fans of that film will already know, Thanos arguably was the movie’s main star. On the other hand, since Brolin had only made cameo appearances in MCU movies to that point, it wouldn’t have been a massive deal to cast another actor as Thanos. As a result, Brolin didn’t have the powers at be at Marvel over the barrel in the same way that his co-stars did.
In the end, Josh Brolin was reportedly paid $5-6 million to star as Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. Of course, that is an exorbitant amount of money but people like Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and Scarlett Johansson were paid much more. However, given the fact that those actors built the MCU into the most successful film franchise of all-time, that seems very fair.
Unfortunately, as of the time of this writing, there aren’t any reliable reports of Josh Brolin’s Avengers: Endgame salary that are available. However, the thing that you have to keep in mind is that Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame were filmed back-to-back. With that in mind, it seems safe to assume that Brolin made a similar amount of money for the latter of the two films. After all, Brolin agreed to his Avengers: Endgame salary before Avengers: Infinity War was released and became a massive success.
The Best Decision
At this point, it is abundantly clear that portraying Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has done huge things for Josh Brolin’s career. After all, getting to boast that you played a pivotal role in two of the highest-grossing films in cinematic history is likely to push anyone’s career forward. However, when Brolin agreed to star in those films, it was entirely possible that they’d fail since expectations for them were so high that missing the mark could’ve been catastrophic.
During an appearance on the Team Deakins podcast, Josh Brolin revealed that he’d been asked to star in comic book movies in the past. I turned down quite a bit of those things and again people were like ‘money!’” Since a big payday evidently wasn’t a big enough draw to convince Brolin to make that leap in the past, you may be left wondering why he eventually agreed to play Thanos.
As it turns out, the main reason why Josh Brolin agreed to play Thanos is that the character was such a badass. “When they came to me, they gave me a big bible. I loved that it was all [of them]. If it had been one of the Avengers — and I don’t mean this, I probably shouldn’t say this but I’m just gonna say it — I probably wouldn’t have done it. But the fact that it was all the Avengers against this one guy, I liked that aspect of it.”