Ridley Scott‘s All The Money in The World made headlines when the director announced he’d be reshooting all Kevin Spacey‘s scenes with Christopher Plummer – and still make the Christmas release.
At the time, Scott said that everyone save the crew and Plummer did the reshoots for “nothing”.
But three different sources have now confirmed to USA Today that while Michelle Williams was paid US $80 a day for reshoots (working out to less than $1,000), her co-star Mark Wahlberg was paid $1.5 million for the same work.
It means that Williams earned less than 1 percent of her male co-star’s rate. USA Today reports that Williams wasn’t told about Wahlberg’s fee.
The Washington Post, which first reported on Wahlberg’s fee, noted that the actor – who was the highest-paid actor of 2017, FYI – had “a reputation in Hollywood for driving a tough bargain”, along with his manager Stephen Leveson.
Whereas Williams – who’s repped by the same agency as Wahlberg – publicly stated that she’d be happy to wave her fee because she was so grateful the film was taking a stand against alleged sexual assault of minors.
“I said I’d be wherever they needed me, whenever they needed me,” she told USA TODAY. “And they could have my salary, they could have my holiday, whatever they wanted. Because I appreciated so much that they were making this massive effort.”
Yeah look, it’s not like Williams is bad for offering to do it for free, or that Wahlberg is necessarily bad for negotiating a lot of money for a couple days work; it’s just depressingly cliche that somehow women are the ones losing out financially in the ongoing fight to eradicate sexually harassment and assault within the Hollywood industry.
Scott waived his fee, too, but it was to save his own movie. And even ignoring the ethical causes here, it looks like it was the right decision: a few weeks ago, the AFI premiere was cancelled. Now it’s grossed over $20 million in two weeks. Money talks, etc, and so does free publicity about reshoots.
