Mark Wahlberg’s $25 Million Per-Movie Netflix Payday Is No Match for Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio

Mark Wahlberg is having a very specific kind of late-career run: fewer red carpets, way more streaming checks. If it feels like he is always on your home screen, that is because he kind of is.

The run so far

Wahlberg dropped Play Dirty on Prime Video in October, then popped up on Apple TV+ with The Family Plan 2 not long after. Since 2020, he has headlined seven streaming movies across services like Netflix and Paramount+. Quietly prolific, very efficient.

The money question

So what does a reliable, marquee name make in the streaming era? Forbes pegs Wahlberg at roughly 20 to 25 million dollars per film right now. That is elite money, but there is another tier above him that only a handful of icons touch.

• Mark Wahlberg: about 20 to 25 million dollars per streaming film (Forbes estimate)
• Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt: reportedly up to 30 to 40 million dollars when they do a streaming project
• Denzel Washington: in that up-to-40-million bracket as well

Do those numbers line up with impact? If you are a streamer chasing new subs and fewer cancellations, paying for a face people click on is the game. By that logic, it tracks.

Next up: The Operator at Netflix

Deadline says Wahlberg is set to star in The Operator, an action thriller written by Harrison Query. Netflix has the distribution rights, so expect it to land directly on the service. The setup: he plays an ex-Tier One operator earning a living as one of the CIA's off-the-grid clean-up guys. Then he is told to get his most hated target to safety, which flips the job into a full-on cat-and-mouse chase. No director attached yet.

He has history with Netflix already: Spenser Confidential, The Union, and Me Time were all Wahlberg-led releases for the platform.

The bigger empire

Celebrity Net Worth puts Wahlberg's net worth around 400 million dollars as of June 2025. Take that site with the usual grain of salt, but the figure makes sense when you add up all his lanes.

Before the acting run, he was Marky Mark with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, where Good Vibrations went Platinum, plus those Calvin Klein ads everyone remembers. On the business side, he has stacked ventures: Municipal, Wahlburgers, Unrealistic Ideas, and more. Municipal launched in 2019 and reportedly generates over 5 million dollars a year on its own. Add in the steady stream of streaming roles, and you see how the machine stays fed.

Bottom line

Wahlberg has found the sweet spot: a constant presence on the biggest platforms, paydays that justify the effort, and a portfolio that cushions the gaps. Also, yes, seeing The Family Plan 2 show up this fast is a little eyebrow-raising, but clearly the market likes what he is selling.