Deadpool director Tim Miller has revealed the surprisingly small payout he received for the project.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Deadpool has become a pop culture monolith. The wisecracking wildcard has become the face of Rated R superhero films, with his latest outing raking in over a billion at the box office. His face has been plastered on graphic tees and novelty mugs in every hot topic across the nation, and the character floods the floors of every convention, comic-related or not.
It’s hard for new fans to comprehend that the character wasn’t always the money-making juggernaut for Marvel that he is now… at least in live-action. This is perfectly exemplified in a comment by the first film’s director, Tim Miller. When speaking about his involvement in the franchise, he admits that he feels pride in helping bring the character to the mainstream. However, anyone who thinks his role made him rich is pretty far from the truth.
“You know what I feel? Nothing but pride,” Miller told Collider in a recent interview. “I mean, I feel like every time I walk down the aisles out there on the floor of CCXP and I see all these Deadpool figurines, I think they wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t made that film. And I feel uniquely fortunate that I could be part of it.”
“Then, then my second thought is, ‘I wish my director deals had a piece of the merchandising so that I could get some money from all of that.’ You guys might not know, but it’s not really a profitable thing to be a first-time director in Hollywood, and I’ll tell you exactly.”
How Much Tim Miller Made From Deadpool
It may be shocking to think that Tim Miller didn’t make much as the director of Deadpool. However, it’s important to remember that 20th Century Fox had almost no faith in the film being made, with it only being greenlit due to the overwhelmingly positive reception to test footage that leaked online. Continuing on about the project, Miller revealed he made less than $250,000 on a movie that would go on to gross nearly $800,000.
“I got $225,000 to direct Deadpool. I know it sounds like a lot of money, but for two years of work, that’s not a ton of money. Not that I’m not grateful, I’m [frick]ing grateful, that’s the way it is because you’re supposed to when you’re a first-time director. My agent said ‘Dude, you make more on an episode of The Walking Dead!’”
“I think a lot of people think that everyone’s getting paid millions and millions in Hollywood. It’s just not the case, not always. I don’t want to sound like I wasn’t grateful because I had worked, I was 50 when I got a chance to direct Deadpool, and I really thought I wasn’t going to get a chance to direct a movie even though I’d wanted to my whole life.”
While it’s a shame that Tim Miller didn’t get even a fraction of Deadpool‘s profits in spite of being its director, it’s good that he seems to look back at the experience fondly. It’s rare that anyone gets to contribute to the molding of a pop culture phenomenon in the same way that Deadpool has become. And since then, Miller has become a wildly successful director-producer in his own right with projects like Terminator: Dark Fate and Sonic the Hedgehog.
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