“Definitely the men were getting paid more”: Kirsten Dunst Hated Spider-Man Co-Star Tobey Maguire as He Was Paid More Than Her
Looking back to when Kirsten Dunst was 19 and a Spider-Man producer asked her to get her teeth fixed. That wasn’t the plan, at least not until the car arrived at the dentist’s office. Dunst had all the qualities that producers were looking for: talent, youth, and beauty. She was poised on the verge of stardom and getting ready to play Mary Jane, Peter Parker’s charming love interest, in the $130 million comic book adaptation. Unless you’re a woman, great power also comes with great responsibility and a big paycheck. Men are given a higher economic value than women, which is one of these issues and has received more attention in recent years. While it’s important to talk about how class affects people, celebrities are also impacted by the pay gap.
Even Kirsten Dunst, one of the most known personalities in the media, encountered a sizable pay gap in one of her movies. What movie was this? How did she feel about it?
Kirsten Dunst recalls the extreme pay gap in Spider-Man
Playing the character of Mary Jane, the charming love interest of Peter Parker, Kirsten Dunst recently discussed the enormous pay gap between her and actor Tobey Maguire, which she didn’t give much thought to at the time. In three Spider-Man films, directed by Sam Raimi, she portrayed the female lead. This film saw a major success and was followed by two sequels- Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3.
Speaking out about pay disparities on the Spider-Man set, Kirsten Dunst claims that Tobey Maguire received a higher salary than she did for the 2002 comic book blockbuster. The 39-year-old actress claimed to The Independent that there was “a very extreme pay disparity” between her and Spider-Man. “I didn’t even think about it. But you know who was on the cover of the second Spider-Man poster? Spider-Man and ME.”
Dunst withheld the amount of money she received for her role as Mary-Jane in the superhero movie, which brought in $821 million at the box office. However, it’s been said that Maguire received $4 million for playing Peter Parker in the film. For the 2004 sequel, Spider-Man 2, he later negotiated a $17.5 million salary. Whether Dunst also got a significant raise for the sequel is unknown. She and Maguire both reprised their roles in Spider-Man 3, which was released in 2007.
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Kirsten Dunst got less pay than the male leads!
Dunst has previously talked about the pay disparity between the Spider-Man movies. Although she claimed to have Spidey senses tingling, she didn’t take the rumor seriously when Maguire received a raise in 2017. She said, “When I was young, I thought, ‘Oh wow, I’m getting paid a lot of money for the Spider-Man movies. But definitely, the men were getting paid more.” However, Dunst would still be able to reprise her part in a potential reboot despite the pay gap. “I would do it. Why not?” When asked if she would consider playing Mary-Jane in another film, the actress responded, “That would be fun,” to Variety last week.
“I would never say no to something like that,” Dunst added, before joking: “I’d be old MJ at this point with little Spidey babies.”
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Well, along with her partner Jesse Plemons, Dunst is now a mother of two young kids. Ennis Howard, the couple’s oldest son, was born in 2018, and James Robert, their second son, was born in May. In the meantime, it’s widely expected that Dunst will receive her first Oscar nomination for her most recent movie, Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog. The drama will debut on Netflix the following month.
Source: Vanity Fair
