Terrence Howard recently credited 2008’s Iron Man with “killing his career“. When he signed on to play Col. James Rhodes (War Machine), he was the first actor on board and was reportedly paid more than the rest of the actors were later offered. The deal was set, so Marvel had to give him plenty of cash to buy lots of new hats.
In the video below, Howard tells Andy Cohen of Watch What Happens Live that he was offered 1/8th of his contracted pay for Iron Man 2, then they replaced him with Don Cheadle when he wouldn’t take the pay cut. What’s interesting is the new information on who he now blames for the pay cut: Robert Downey Jr, who received $50 million for The Avengers alone.
Here’s what Terrence Howard had to say in the video below:
“Well, it turns out…and this is gonna get me in a lot of trouble” Howard started. “It turns out that the person that I helped become Iron Man, when it was time to re-up for the second one took the money that was supposed to go to me and pushed me out.” […] “We did a three picture deal. You did the deal ahead of time. A certain amount for the first one. For the second a certain amount. For the third…they came to me for the second one and said, ‘We will pay you 1/8th of what we contractually had for you, because we think the second one will be successful with or without you.’ And I called my friend who I helped get the first job and he didn’t call me back for three months.” When asked how are things now between he and Robert Downey Jr., Terrence deadpanned, “Oh, I love him. God’s gonna bless him.” [CBM, emphasis ours]
That’s like when my southern relatives say, “bless your heart”, isn’t it? To be fair, the Iron Man franchise did make a ton of money off Robert Downey Jr., with or without Howard.
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(Banner picture via Getty Images. Inset pictures via CBM and Reddit.)