Robert Downey, Jr.'s Mighty Marvel Moneybags

Move over, Tony Stark--you've got company at the super-rich-guys' table. According to a story at The Hollywood Reporter, Robert Downey, Jr. will make somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million for his role in Marvel's The Avengers, thanks to a generous backend deal that his agents negotiated after the success of Iron Man shocked everyone in the industry back in 2008. Due to the hazy math involved, a representative told THR that it might literally be years before anyone can figure out exactly what Downey is due. That's something like ten times the reported salary of his best-paid co-stars, with everybody else making between $2 million and $4 million for starring in the picture, according to THR. Apparently after negotiating the deal with Downey, Marvel was chastened and negotiated deals with all of their future actors that would ensure they wouldn't be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars if a film had the kind of unprecedented success they're currently seeing from The Avengers, which was one of the fastest movies ever to make $1 billion at the global box office and which many are speculating has a shot to unseat Avatar as the highest-grossing film of all time. While the number is high, the story suggests it's certainly not unheard of, with director Michael Bay taking home somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 million for Transformers and Johnny Depp making more than $200 million for the Pirates of the Carribbean movies, both due in large part to generous backend deals.