When James Cameron’s 2009 adventure flick Avatar entered cinemas around the world, it didn’t take long for the award-winning motion picture to break all kinds of records, having since attained the title for achieving the highest lifetime gross after generating $2.84 billion at the box office.
Close behind is 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which has already made $2.79 billion, and while the latter is most likely going to break the record, fans shouldn’t forget that James has been working on a five-part sequel to his fantasy film, with the second installment expected to hit theatres in December 2022.
Zoe, who also plays Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy, has starred in three movies that have all surpassed $2 billion at the box office, yet her name is nowhere to be found in Forbes’ annual list of highest-paid actresses in Hollywood. Her fans have argued that the 42-year-old, who's close pals with Michael B. Jordan, is unfairly paid less than other actors, which seems to be apparent when comparing her earnings to some of her co-stars.
Zoe Saldana’s Salary
Zoe has amassed a $35 million fortune, which certainly is a lot of money — but for a woman who has appeared in so many blockbuster hits, one would think her net worth would be higher than that.
Appearing in Avengers: Infinity War in 2018 and Avengers: End Game in 2019, on top of having starred as Neytiri in Avatar — which all surpassed $2 billion at the box office — it’s hard to understand why this actress doesn’t have the same numbers in her bank as the likes of Jennifer Lawrence ($160 million) or Scarlett Johansson ($165 million).
One also shouldn’t forget that the mother of three has also had a lot of success playing Gamora in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which is currently filming its third installment for a 2023 release.
The franchise alone has brought in more than $1.5 billion at the box office, yet Zoe isn’t getting the salary she deserves based on how successful her movies have fared.
When Zoe accepted her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2018, she told the crowd that acting and working on movies had always been a dream of hers, which, if you interlink it with reports that she’s an underpaid actress, shows that money isn’t everything for her.
“Having a dream is just step one,” she said. “Step two: sleeves up, hard work, persistence, passion, perseverance. Fail often and fail forward. If at first, you don’t succeed, you dust yourself off and you try again. I learned to love what I do and do what I love and that has been my mantra.
“From Burger King commercials to Law and Order episodic, to a ballet movie. I got to be a pirate, an INS officer, a xenolinguist on the Enterprise. I got to be an alien warrior – well, multiple alien warriors.”
Regardless of what the role was for, Zoe was just always keen to be on set and practice her skills. With that said, this shouldn’t be an excuse as to why she seems to be OK with being an underpaid actress, especially when her movies are bringing in all the money.
For 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Zoe made a reported $100,000 even though the film went on to gross $772 million.
While we’d like to assume she received a significant raise for the follow-up flick in 2017, there really isn’t a reason why an actress as established as Zoe should’ve settled for a measly paycheck having already had a stellar resume under her belt, including her role in Avatar.
Sandra Bullock, in comparison, took home $70 million for her involvement in 2013’s Gravity thanks to a $20 million salary and a backend deal that allowed her to gain a certain percentage of profits if the film was to do well at the box office.
Zoe will reprise her role in Avatar 2, which enters cinemas at the end of next year, and fans can only hope that with all that she has achieved since the last release, the New Jersey native will finally receive the pay she should be entitled to.
In September 2020, James Cameron confirmed that filming for the second installment was complete and that the third movie in the franchise was wrapping up its final live-action scenes in New Zealand.
"Now that doesn't mean that I have an extra year to finish the film because the day we deliver 'Avatar 2' we'll just start working on finishing 'Avatar 3,'" he told Arnold Schwarzenegger at the 2020 Austrian World Summit.
"So where we are right now, I'm down in New Zealand shooting. We're shooting the remainder of the live-action. We've got about 10% left to go. We're 100% complete on 'Avatar 2' and we're sort of 95% complete on 'Avatar 3.'"