Robert Downey Jr’s net worth – How he became one of the richest men in Hollywood

Robert Downey Jr is now one of the richest men in Hollywood thanks to his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man, but his superhero career did not begin with a huge salary.
The actor had a very successful career in the 1990s until he was repeatedly arrested on substance abuse charges, and then struggled to get roles in the early 2000s.
Everything changed when he was cast as the billionaire inventor Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, where he played one of the most important roles in the Marvel franchise from 2008 to 2019.
After a wildly successful time as one of Marvel’s leading superheroes, it is now estimated that Robert is worth over $400 million as of 2024.
However, when Marvel first decided to take a chance and cast him as Iron Man’s leading man in 2008, the actor was paid only $2.5 million for the role.
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Robert Downey Jr began to earn huge paychecks for his role as Iron Man. The Avengers movie was the first time all the major superheroes in the Marvel franchise appeared on screen together.
According to Business Insider, Robert was paid $50 million for the Avengers movie plus a percentage of the movie’s profits, and the movie made over $1.5 billion at the box office.
The next year in 2013, he made Fobe’s list of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood with a net worth of $75 million.
As he continued playing Iron Man, Robert tipped Forbes’s highest-paid actors list again in 2015 when it was estimated the actor was worth $80 million at the time.
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It is believed he was paid $33 million to appear in the next Avengers movie Captain America: Civil War and that he made over $15 million for appearing in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming with Tom Holland.
His penultimate appearance as Iron Man in Avengers: Infinity War was released in 2018, earning over $2 billion.
When accounting for his box office bonuses as well, it is believed the actor earned around $81 million for his Marvel appearances in 2018.
For his final appearance in the Marvel movies in Avengers: Endgame, Robert was paid $75 million in 2019.
According to Forbes, the actor was initially paid $20 million for the role and then due to the box office success earned over $55 million.
Since leaving Marvel, Robert has admitted he feels a little bit “exposed” now that he is not working with the franchise, but is still very proud of his performance at Iron Man in his recent interview on Rob Lowe’s podcast Literally.
For his latest movie Oppenheimer, it has been reported by Variety that Robert was paid $4 million but also has a deal that he will earn more box office profits as well.
The star said: “I felt so exposed after being in the cocoon of Marvel where I think I did some of the best work I will ever do, but it went a little bit unnoticed because of the genre.
“[I] did myself a favor, because the rug was pulled so definitively out from underneath me and all the things that I was leaning on as opposed to what my understanding of confidence and security was, boy did they evaporate. And it rendered me teachable.”
For the Oscars 2024, Robert has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Oppenheimer, and the latest predictions estimate the actor is likely to win his first Academy Award at the ceremony on Sunday, March 10.
He is up against fellow Marvel actor Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things) as well as Sterling K Brown (American Fiction), Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon) and Ryan Gosling (Barbie).