Milly Alcock’s $400K ‘Supergirl’ Salary Is Both Surprisingly Low and Completely Understandable
Milly Alcock stepped into one of DC’s most iconic capes this summer, making her feature film debut as Kara Zor-El in ‘Supergirl’. The Australian actress first caught the attention of DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran through her acclaimed performance as young Rhaenyra Targaryen in HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’, and she was cast to play Kara Zor-El with the character serving as a tag at the end of last summer’s ‘Superman’. For a young actress making her jump from prestige television to full-scale blockbuster territory, it was a career-defining moment.
The film, directed by Craig Gillespie and starring Alcock as Superman’s Kryptonian cousin, centers on an intergalactic quest for vengeance and justice in outer space, set against a $170 million production budget and roughly $120 million in marketing spend. With those kinds of resources behind it, many assumed Alcock’s paycheck would reflect the scale of the undertaking.
Now, with the film’s box office trajectory drawing scrutiny, the financial details behind the production are coming to light. According to a report by Variety, Alcock was paid around $400,000 to play the title character and would have received only a small box office bonus if the film had performed well, which, at this point, appears increasingly unlikely. The film misfired with $37 million in North America and $67 million globally in its opening weekend, and is projected to lose the studio anywhere between $100 million and $120 million.
That salary figure is not entirely without precedent in the superhero space. Gal Gadot earned a base pay of $300,000 for her first ‘Wonder Woman’ movie, though the film’s enormous success ultimately boosted her earnings through box office bonuses. What sets Alcock’s situation apart is context. The stars of last year’s ‘Superman’, including David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan, both earned $750,000, while Nicholas Hoult was paid $2 million. The gap is notable, even for a debut. Industry experts have suggested the relatively modest salary reflects a deliberate strategy by Warner Bros. to keep costs lower by casting a rising actress rather than an established A-list star.
The film’s cast and creatives do not have backend deals, meaning no one is receiving first-dollar grosses off the box office revenue. That structure, while financially sensible for the studio in theory, has left little safety net now that the theatrical performance has underwhelmed. Box office analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations noted that ‘Supergirl’ was always going to be a tough hurdle because the character has never created an event-level blockbuster, and that audience perception of the film was simply not good enough to overcome that.
Despite the rough opening, the conversation around Alcock personally has been far kinder. While mixed-to-negative reviews have followed the film, audiences have responded far more warmly, with the movie sitting at a respectable 77% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes from over 1,000 verified fans. Alcock is already confirmed to return as Supergirl in next year’s ‘Man of Tomorrow’, the James Gunn-directed sequel to ‘Superman’. DC producer Lars P. Winther told The Hollywood Reporter that DC Studios has already decided what the next DCU movie after ‘Man of Tomorrow’ will be, and that Alcock is set to be “a big part of that” as well.
For an actress who once worked part-time at a café in Sydney’s Marrickville before her career took off, the trajectory from that to anchoring a major comic book franchise is remarkable regardless of what the opening weekend numbers say. Whether that $400,000 looks like a bargain or a missed opportunity may depend entirely on what Milly Alcock does next, so what do you think, does her performance in ‘Supergirl’ prove she deserves a significantly bigger paycheck when ‘Man of Tomorrow’ arrives?
