Netflix’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ Budget: Everything We Know About the Star-Studded Cast Salaries

Not since Movie 43 has yet to be a film as star-studded as Netflix‘s upcoming awards player Don’t Look Up. Rattling off a list of combined awards these folks have won would mean several Golden Globes, a handful of Emmys, quite a few Oscars (including the record for most Academy Award nominations ever), and even some Grammys. How the heck did Netflix secure all these power players? Well, the quick answer would be: money. But we’ve got the long answer as to just about how much money each star was paid, too.

The big stars in Adam McKay‘s new movie will take up a whole dang paragraph of space: we’ve got Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio, two Best Actor/Actress winners, in the lead roles. Then, there’s Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet, Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett, Ron Perlman, Mark Rylance, Ariana Grande, Tyler Perry, Kid Cudi, Gina Gershon, Matthew Perry, and a handful of other folks set to star with them. Whew!

Wondering about the budget for Don’t Look Up and what each of these huge stars was paid? We’ve got you covered. Here’s everything we know about the upcoming sci-fi comedy:

What is the Don’t Look Up budget?

Don’t Look Up was originally reported to have a $75 million budget. For reference, the average Marvel film costs around $190 million. Netflix’s most expensive film to date was Scorsese’s 2019 epic The Irishman, which cost the streamer $159 million. None of these big tickets are anything in comparison to the massive amount of cash Netflix plans to spend on content in 2021, though: that’d be around $17 billion. Woof.

What was the Don’t Look Up cast paid? Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and more:

Most of that aforementioned $75 million went to lead stars DiCaprio and Lawrence, who were paid a joint sum of $55 million. Uh, save some for the rest of these stars, guys! Reportedly, DiCaprio cashed a fat $30 million, and Lawrence raked in slightly less with a $25 million paycheck. Normally, they’d make around $20 million per film.

That $75 million budget may have been a bit of a lowball. If $55 million went to DiCaprio and Lawrence, that only leaves $20 million for the rest of the stars, the director, and the production itself. And Meryl Streep, who is one of the highest paid actresses in the game, normally makes $24 million per film. That’s over-budget already. While we don’t have the other stars’ numbers available, we can make an educated guess that the “$75 million budget” was increased at some point.

What is Don’t Look Up about?

The movie will follow Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Lawrence), two lowly astronomers who discover that a catastrophic meteor is heading right towards Earth. When the rest of the nation doesn’t believe that they’re in grave danger — cough, sounds familiar, cough — they must go on a wild media tour to convince everyone to get up and do something about the issue.

Is there a Don’t Look Up trailer?

Yup, it dropped yesterday (Sept. 8). Scroll up to the video above to check it out now!