As the highly anticipated Wicked film has moviegoers around the world holding space, a rumour of the cast’s alleged salary gap has caught negative attention online, with Ariana Grande seemingly collecting a significantly bigger stack of cash than her costar Cynthia Erivo.
With the film adaptation of the musical Wicked hitting cinemas over the weekend, the film has become an immediate box-office success. Raking in a whopping $10.3 million in Australia over its opening weekend, along with an impressive USD $114 million in the United States.
However, while Wicked fever is going viral, so are the rumoured salaries of the cast — and not for the right reasons!
According to posts on X (formerly Twitter) and reports from multiple outlets, the gap in pay between Wicked‘s leads is more than $10 million, and people online are perplexed by the allegedly massive gap.
Ariana getting paid over $10M more than Cynthia doesn’t sit right with me… https://t.co/hM2uMv9U0b
— King Kyle 🤴🏽🎀 (@kyleskiki) November 25, 2024
It should be emphasised early that no salaries for the Wicked cast have been actually confirmed by the cast or the studio, and that these numbers are more-than-likely innacurate.
That hasn’t stopped folks online from kicking up a storm over Grande’s huge paycheque though, with many highlighting that Erico is the lead actress and titular character.
“It’s not that Ariana shouldn’t have been paid that much. It’s that Cynthia should have been paid just as much, if not more — she’s the lead, after all,” one person wrote.
Others flocked to the “Thank U, Next” singer’s defence, and pointed out that she was paid the bigger fee due to being a bigger name.
“Ariana got paid to bring a crowd and vocally produce. I agree Cynthia should’ve been paid more than what she was but Ariana clearly had the better team negotiating on her behalf,” an X user commented.
“Grande being in this movie brings in people and that’s worth the $10M investment,” said another.
What were the salaries of the Wicked cast?
Again, these numbers are only rumoured to be what the cast for Wicked has been paid for the first movie. Plus, these numbers do not include whatever royalties may have been negotiated as pay for each cast member.
That all said, here’s what each Wicked cast member was (potentially) paid:
Ariana Grande-Butera — Glinda the Good Witch
Alleged Salary: USD $15 million
Cynthia Erivo — Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West
Alleged Salary: USD $1 million
Michelle Yeoh — Madame Morrible
Alleged Salary: USD $2 million
Jeff Goldblum — The Wizard of Oz
Alleged Salary: USD $2 million
Jonathan Bailey — Fiyero Tigelaar
Alleged Salary: USD $450K
Even if these numbers do turn out to be true, given how successful the first film has already been it is practically guaranteed that the money will be more evenly split in the upcoming sequel, Wicked: Part Two.
Which even though it doesn’t come out for a whole year (ugh) you can learn more about here!
Lead Image: Getty
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