Wahlberg Making More Money Than Williams for 'All the Money' Reshoots Isn't Sexist, But Business

by Julian Spivey
Much has been made in the news lately about how Mark Wahlberg made over 1,000 times more money for reshoots of the Ridley Scott film “All the Money in the World” than his co-star Michelle Williams when reshoots were made necessary by Christopher Plummer being hired to replace Kevin Spacey after sexual harassment allegations against Spacey.
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On the surface it seems like a big deal and an incredibly bad and sexist thing for Wahlberg to earn so much more money than his co-star Williams, especially when it’s Williams who’s garnering award nominations for her performance. Wahlberg has even taken some of the hatred from people for making every penny he can make in the process.  

This is just another example of people today who like to make mountains out of molehills. The real story here is about contracts and how some actors and their representatives are better at coming to terms on movie deals than others. If one were to go beneath the surface and do a little digging like USA Today did they would realize that Wahlberg’s contract for “All the Money in the World” didn’t require him to film any reshoots necessary. Williams’ contract did. Thus, Williams received a per diem of $80 per day, whereas Wahlberg was able to negotiate a fee for the reshoots, which lasted 10 days.

Wahlberg didn’t have to do reshoots, period. He could’ve turned down Scott, which likely would’ve resulted in one of three things: the film being scrapped, the film being released as is with Spacey included or Scott also having to replace Wahlberg on film in addition to replacing Spacey. Wahlberg did the right thing, in my opinion, opting to reshoot scenes (of which he appeared in more with Plummer and had to film more than Williams). Because of his contract for the film not obligating him to do so he had the right to earn as much as they would pay him. This is where some find Wahlberg to be greedy for asking for $1.5 million for 10 days work, while his co-star was only making $80 a day (a figure that Wahlberg likely didn’t realize). But, the actor, who was 2017’s highest-paid actor according to Forbes, could’ve taken the time to work on other projects (he does have one currently filming) or just vacation in between his rigorous schedule that’s seen him average 3.4 films a year over the last five years.

Knowing what we know about the contract situations between Wahlberg and Williams on the film there shouldn’t be any controversy over the pay for the reshoots. It certainly doesn’t come down to something sexist, but rather business decisions. Maybe Wahlberg’s representatives are taking better care of him than Williams’ are doing for her? 

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