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Ever since taking on the role of James Bond, Daniel Craig‘s net worth has continued to skyrocket—but his increasing net worth isn’t just thanks to playing 007.
In 2021, Craig was named Hollywood’s highest-paid actor in a report by StyleCaster’s sister site, Variety. While Craig has made most of his money throughout the years from his starring role in the James Bond film franchise, it was actually his involvement in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series that put him over the top for the title of the highest-paid actor at the time. But how much was Craig being paid, exactly?
For everything there is to know about Daniel Craig’s net worth—from how much he’s earned from playing James Bond to his Knives Out and No Time to Die salary—just keep on reading below.
What is Daniel Craig’s Knives Out salary?
Image: Courtesy of Netflix.
What is Daniel Craig’s Knives Out salary? Daniel Craig has starred in the Knives Out franchise since the first film in 2019. In the series, Craig plays detective Benoit Blanc—otherwise known as “The Last of the Gentlemen Sleuths.” The actor is set to star in the franchise’s upcoming sequels, in which his character detective Blanc is expected to star as the sole protagonist.
While it’s unclear just how much Craig made for his appearance in the first installment of the Knives Out franchise, Variety reported that he was paid more than $100 million for the second and third films in the murder mystery series. According to the site, Netflix landed on this hefty deal to account for the projected back-end earnings an actor would typically make from a film’s box office sales if it were to be released normally in theaters. The second Knives Out movie, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, premiered on Netflix in December 2022.
What was Daniel Craig’s No Time to Die salary?
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What was Daniel Craig’s No Time to Die salary? No Time to Die marked Daniel Craig’s fifth and final appearance as James Bond. The actor, who has starred as the famed super spy since 2006’s Casine Royale, has called his 15-year career as 007 one of the “greatest honors” of his life.
“A lot of people here worked on five pictures with me, and I know there’s a lot of things said about what I think about these films,” he said after filming his final scene in the franchise. “But I’ve loved every single second of these movies, and especially this one because I’ve got up every morning and I’ve had the chance to work with you guys. And that has been one of the greatest honors of my life.”
After well over a decade of being Bond, Daniel Craig’s salary for No Time to Die was undoubtedly an impressive one. According to Celebrity Net Worth, the actor took home a base salary of $25 million for the film. This amount doesn’t even account for his bonuses following the film’s box office sales, which could make his final earnings from No Time to Die amount to millions more.
How much did Daniel Craig made from playing James Bond?
Image: Sony Pictures/Everett Collection.
How much did Daniel Craig make from playing James Bond? We all had to start somewhere, and for Daniel Craig, that meant taking home a salary that once paled in comparison to his final paycheck for the franchise. For 2006’s Casino Royale, Craig earned $3.2 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. He saw a small pay bump for his 2008 follow-up, Quantum of Space at $7.2 million.
It wasn’t until 2012’s Skyfall that Craig really began to bring home the big bucks. For his third appearance as Bond, the actor reportedly received a $17 million base salary, plus $3 million in box office bonuses, bringing his total Skyfall earnings to around $20 million. In 2015, Craig received a pay bump once again, earning $25 million as a base and negotiating an extra $5 million in back-end bonuses for a total of $30 million.
Given that Craig also reportedly received a $25 million base salary for No Time to Die, this brings his overall earnings from the Bond franchise to an estimated $85.4 million. Keep in mind, however, that this before any additional bonuses and royalties from his final appearance in the Bond series, which means his total earnings are likely set to be millions more.
In an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2017, Craig confirmed that his fifth Bond movie—2021’s No Time to Die—is his last. “I have been quite cagey about it. I have been doing interviews all day and people have been asking me and I think I’ve been rather coy. But kind of felt like if I was going to speak the truth I should speak truth to you,” he said at the time. “We’ve been discussing it, we’ve just been trying to figure things out. I always wanted to, I needed a break…I think this is it. I just want to go out on a high note and I can’t wait.”
Craig also told Empire magazine in 2021 about why he was retiring as James Bond. “I take things quite seriously unfortunately, but also because I care, and I love what I do. So I’m never not trying to figure out whether we can make it a bit better. It’s James Bond. This is, for me personally, the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my career. It’s one of the biggest things in my life. It’s massively important to me, and maybe that’s taking it too seriously, and sometimes you’ve got to lighten it [up],” he said at the time. “I think we’ve definitely managed to do that on [No Time to Die]. It feels like creatively we’ve put in all the right things to make it so that there’s a lot of lightness and a lot of emotion. But I’m always trying to ask the question, ‘Are we doing good enough?’ I’m looking around the room saying, ‘If this isn’t good enough, it’s not in the movie. Let’s move on. Let’s get something else. Let’s find something better.’ So most people probably think of me as a pain in the ass.”
Craig also told the Los Angeles Times in 2022 that he needed his version of James Bond to end how it did in No Time to Die so he could move on from the franchise “Two things, one for myself and one for the franchise,” Craig said. “One, for the franchise, was that resets start again, which [the franchise] did with me. And I was like, ‘Well, you need to reset again.’ So let’s kill my character off and go find another Bond and go find another story. Start at [age] 23, start at 25, start at 30.” Craig continued, “The other was so that I could move on. I don’t want to go back. I suppose I should be so lucky if they were to ask me back, but the fact is I need to move on from it. The sacrifice that he makes in the movie was for love and there’s no greater sacrifice. So it seemed like a good thing to end on.”
Craig also told Entertainment Weekly in 2021 about what he missed the most about playing James Bond. “I’ll miss everything, I think. I’ll miss the collaboration,” he said. “I mean, hopefully I’ll keep working and I’ll have lots of other lovely jobs, but it’s very, very, very rare air. Apart from Marvel movies, there aren’t movies that are as big as this. I’ve had the privilege of being involved in it. … It was there before me, and it will be there after me. But I’ve had a chance to be part of all of this, and if you can’t get it up for a Bond movie as an actor, what can you get it up for? So, yeah, I’ll miss it a lot.”
How much is Daniel Craig’s net worth in 2022?
Netflix
What is Daniel Craig’s net worth? According to Celebrity Net Worth, Daniel Craig’s net worth is $160 million as of 2022. His earnings come from not only his well-known appearances in the James Bond franchise, but also from his roles in other projects throughout the years. These include 2007’s The Invasion, 2008’s Defiance, 2011’s Cowboys And Aliens, his 2017 role in Kings opposite Halle Berry and Netflix’s Knives Out series, among others.
In an interview with Empire magazine in 2021, Craig opened up about how he felt different as an actor after playing James Bond for more than a decade. “for a while I mourned the actor that I was in Casino Royale, because in Casino Royale I didn’t know any better. I just didn’t get all of the pressure. Then you do [the film] and you get some success, and you go, ‘Oh shit’. It’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “If I made Casino Royale and it was a pile of shit and I walked away, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And maybe I would have carried on acting and that would have been great. But it was a hit, and then there was the pressure that came with the need to succeed.”
He continued, “Sometimes I would yearn after the person I was when we did Casino Royale. Sometimes too much knowledge is just a little bit not a good thing. I was in the dark about a lot of things, about the way things worked, about the way the world really viewed Bond. Then I suddenly started understanding them, and the weight of it bored me down. We did Quantum Of Solace, which was a bit of a shitshow to say the least, and the full weight of it made me locked up. Thankfully since then it’s just been about loosening up and trying to get back to that feeling of Casino Royale, which is just like, ‘Come on, it’s James Bond, enjoy yourself. Let’s have a good time’. I mean, I’m still a moody cunt.”
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