Kirsten Dunst Is Ready to Do a Film Where She Doesn't 'Lose Money'

Kirsten Dunst candidly admitted that she’d like to star in a Minecraft sequel because of the potentially large paycheck.

“Maybe I can just make a movie where I don’t lose money,” Dunst, 43, told Town & Country during an interview published on Wednesday, August 20.

Dunst didn’t actually appear in the first Minecraft movie — which starred Jack Black and Jason Momoa — but said she was interested in the video game adaptation since her kids were fans of the film. (A Minecraft Movie made $955 million at the box office earlier this year. A sequel is in development.)

The Academy Award–nominated actress has been part of some hugely successful blockbusters, including Spider-Man, Jumanji and Bring It On, though she’s worked most often recently in mid-budget dramas, such as Civil War and The Power of the Dog.

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Speaking to BBC News in 2024, Dunst confirmed that she was never paid the same as her male costars even when she was working on major franchises.

“I definitely grew up in a time with major pay disparity between the lead actor and myself,” she recalled.

Dunst mentioned that she was paid less than costar Tobey Maguire for 2002’s Spider-Man “even though [she] had been in Bring It On and he hadn’t.” (Bring It On made nearly $100 million when it was released in August 2000.)

“I had more success in my box office than he did,” she noted. “I didn’t even think to ask [for more money], I was 17. I was still learning. When you’re that age, I’m still learning my taste in film. I didn’t even know there was a place to challenge [the disparity]. That’s how it felt at 17.”

Kirsten Dunst in July 2025. Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images

Once those comments went viral, Dunst offered more context to Variety in 2024 about how she’d struggled throughout her career to weigh money against artistic integrity.

“When I was younger, in my 20s, I didn’t have the best guidance, I would say, and I did a couple of duds for money reasons, but nothing that I would have actually done otherwise,” she remembered. “I get offered the most money on things I don’t want to do. As soon as I took the reins and started to develop my tastes and who I wanted to work with, everything shifted.”

Dunst has most recently teamed up with Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance on the modestly budgeted Roofman, a dramatization of the true story of an infamous thief who evaded police by hiding within the walls of a Toys “R” Us store in 2005.

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The actress explained to Town & Country that most of the budget for Roofman went into building a lifesize replica of a Toys “R” Us store. While Dunst once again took a lower paycheck, she joked that she was able to “borrow” pajamas from the fake store for her two children. (Dunst and her husband, Jesse Plemons, share sons Ennis Howard, 7, and James Robert, 4.)

Roofman — also starring Channing Tatum, Uzo Aduba and Peter Dinklage — will have its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival in September before opening in theaters October 10.