Dwayne Johnson is getting the biggest payday ever for an actor for a single role thanks to this Christmas comedy coming soon to Prime Video.
After experiencing several commercial failures in the cinema and before returning to the Fast & Furious franchise, Dwayne Johnson will be the hero of a Christmas comedy on Prime Video. Entitled Red One, this action film announced as an offbeat reinterpretation of end-of-year films is directed by Jake Kasdan (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) from a screenplay by Chris Morgan (Fast & Furious: Hobbs and Shaw).
This new feature film will reunite the former wrestler with the former Captain America! Indeed, Red One also has Chris Evans in its cast, but also Kiernan Shipka (The New Adventures of Sabrina), Lucy Liu (Shazam 2), Nick Kroll (Don’t Worry Darling), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones) and JK Simmons (Spiderman) as Santa Claus.
This return to streaming after the box of Red Notice on Netflix, in which he shared the poster with Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, should allow Dwayne Johnson to find success. But Red One allows him above all to pocket a hell of a fortune.
Record for Dwayne Johnson
Indeed, according to PuckNews (via The Direct), Dwayne Johnson was paid $50 million for his role as Callum Drift, an ELF commander, in Red One. This is the highest salary of his career.
But that’s not all since Dwayne Johnson breaks an incredible record because it is quite simply the biggest salary received by an actor for a single role. The interpreter of Black Adam becomes the highest paid actor of all time in Hollywood.
He beat previous record holders Will Smith and Robert Downey Jr., who were paid $40 million for their roles in The Williams Method (which won him the Best Actor Oscar) and Captain America: Civil War, respectively.
Dwayne Johnson passed a huge milestone in his career with this salary since he was paid $23.5 million for his roles in Jumanji: The Next Level and Red Notice, $22.5 million for Black Adam, $22 million $20 million for Jungle Cruise: Welcome to the Jungle and $20 million for Fast & Furious: Hobbs and Shaw.
This exorbitant salary is explained by the fact that streaming platforms capitalize on the popularity of their headliners and pay them in advance on a “potential guaranteed success”, since the film will not be released in cinemas. The salaries received for theatrical releases combine a fixed salary and a percentage of the turnover achieved at the box office.
It remains to be seen whether the bet taken by Prime Video will pay off. For the moment, the platform has not unveiled images or teasers of Red One, nor its release date. But this Christmas blockbuster should be online by the end of the year.