Marvel Paid Yelena Co-Creator Only $5,000 For Black Widow Movie
Yelena Belova co-creator Devin Grayson received just $5,000 for the character's appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Black Widow movie. Created by comic book writer Grayson and illustrator J.G. Jones in 1999, Yelena Belova made her MCU debut in 2021's Black Widow. Portrayed by Academy Award-nominated actress Florence Pugh, Yelena is Natasha Romanoff's adoptive sister who was also trained in the Red Room as a Black Widow. During the movie's end-credits scene, Yelena is sent by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine to kill Hawkeye under the notion he was responsible for Natasha's death.
Pugh's Yelena returned in episode 4 of the Disney+ series Hawkeye, engaging in a rooftop fight with Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton and Hailee Steinfeld's Kate Bishop. Later, though, after getting to know Clint and Kate a bit better, Yelena realizes he wasn't responsible for her sister's death, and the Hawkeye series finale provides emotional closure for Natasha's demise in Avengers: Endgame. At the moment, Yelena's MCU future is very much up the air, though she is a prime candidate for the eventual Young Avengers or Thunderbolts teams.
Related: Why Yelena Will Join Thunderbolts, Not Young Avengers
Despite Yelena's prominent place in the MCU, a new report from THR reveals that Grayson was paid just $5,000 for her appearance in Black Widow. Though Grayson and Jones believed they would receive $25,000 each according to the agreement they had signed, that payment eventually decreased to $5,000 without any explanation from Marvel.
The answer as to why Grayson only received $5,000 for Yelena's usage in Black Widow lies within a labyrinthine system of contracts and agreements that only a lawyer could make head or tails of. Part of it comes from
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