Update: January 24, 2017
Thanos Creator Was Paid More for BATMAN V SUPERMAN Than All Marvel Movies Combined
How much is a cosmic dictator worth? According to Jim Starlin, who created Thanos, the character at the center of plans for Marvel Studios' upcoming
Avengers: Infinity War, the answer is "less than a minor heavy in Gotham City." Or perhaps the exchange rate is just heavily in DC's favor right now.
"Just received a very big check from DC Entertainment for my participation in
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (Anatoli Knyazev)," Starlin
wrote on Facebook Tuesday morning, adding that the amount was "much bigger than anything I've gotten for Thanos, Gamora and Drax showing up in any of the various Marvel movies they appeared in, combined."
What makes this particularly surprising is that Anatoli Knyazev is a relatively minor figure at best in the movie; it's possible that many viewers would have no idea who he was at all. (For the record, he's the Russian warlord who kidnaps Lois in the beginning of the movie and later repeats that trick by kidnapping Martha Wayne. The character on-screen bears little similarity to the Starlin-created character, who — in DC's comic mythology — is better known by his nom-de-plume, the K.G.Beast.
Last year, Starlin
told Heat Vision that he had renegotiated his deal with Marvel over its usage of Thanos, ahead of the character's on-screen debut in 2012's
The Avengers.
"I'd like to have had a bigger piece of Thanos than I do, but when the first
Avengers movie came out, Marvel and I — we renegotiated some things, so I get a taste out of this thing," he said. "I'm not becoming the next Bill Gates, but I'm getting a little something out of it."
Thanos Creator Jim Starlin Was Paid More for 'Batman v Superman' Than All Marvel Movies Combined