According to Gregory Robinson writing on UNILAD, Jon Heder was only paid $1,000 for Napoleon Dynamite.

The 2004 comedy was made for only $400,000 but went on to gross $46.1 million at the box office.

Gregory elaborates:

“Speaking to Stuff about his ‘dynamite’ career, Heder confirmed he was paid only $1,000 ‘initially’. As we all know, Napoleon Dynamite is firmly cemented in pop culture and has clearly raked in millions since it was unleashed into the universe. Heder was able to renegotiate his deal and got a cut of the profits. Heder explained: ‘They went a little bit higher.'”

The cult film was based on a film school assignment by Jarod Hess in 2022:

My take: if the budget was truly $400,000, I think $1,000 for the lead was very low. However, if the cash budget was, say, one quarter of that, $1,000 starts to look reasonable. Sometimes shorts do lead to bigger things.