Washington [US], April 2: Actress Carrie Coon, known for The White Lotus and The Gilded Age, chose not to reprise her role as Proxima Midnight in Avengers: Endgame after Marvel Studios refused to increase her pay.
Coon originally played the humanoid villain in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) but did not return for its 2019 sequel. According to Deadline, her husband, Tracy Letts, revealed on The Big Picture podcast that a pay dispute led to her decision to exit the franchise.
“I believe [Marvel] went to her for the second one, and they asked her to be in the second one,” Letts said. “And she said, ‘Well, the first one is the most successful movie ever made. Are you going to pay me any more money?’ And they said, ‘No. We’re not going to pay you any more money.’”
In response, Coon declined the offer. “They said, ‘Well, you should feel yourself fortunate to be part of the Marvel Universe.’ So she declined,” Letts added.
The couple, however, didn’t make a public issue out of it, with Letts humorously admitting, “We would’ve made a bigger deal out of this, but it would have involved us watching the movies, and we weren’t going to do that.”
Avengers: Endgame, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, became one of the highest-grossing films of all time. The ensemble cast included Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and Josh Brolin, among others.