Why do actors get paid tens of millions for their movies instead of a normal salary?
In: Culture
Movies can make a lot of money.
Bad actors can ruin a movie and so the people producing it don’t make any money.
Good actors know this so they demand a large amount of money.
Because popular actors are a big part of what causes movies to make so much money. Popular actors know this, so they negotiate their salaries to be commensurate with their worth to the movie production.
This probably isn’t true anymore, but in the 00s accountants determined that casting Cameron Diaz in a movie meant it would automatically make an extra $30,000,000-$50,000,000 overseas. That’s huge, and it meant that any movie that cast Diaz could assume at least that much profit. Consequently Diaz was an extremely in-demand actress for about a decade, and she negotiated her compensation so it matched her bankability.
99% of all actors are paid a salary. They get a set amount for a specific movie/TV episode.
Stars however have agents who may negotiate thier contract to get a better deal. This may include big up front payments or “residuals” this is a share of the profit once the film is released.
Basically if the only reason that the audience is going to see a film is because Tom cruise or Stallone is in it, then surely they should get a relatively large slice of the profit.
The Screen Actors Guild sets minimum wages across the industry.
Mostly because we value entertainment very highly in our societies. Same reason sports is also a very high paying job; people want to watch movies and sports, so it high in demand, and has a lot of money going IN.
One side wants to offer lowest wage, the other side wants the highest wage.
Either they both agree on number, or a contract doesn’t happen.
“Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.”
Because they’re talented and entertaining enough that millions of people want to watch them and that generates $millions/billions.
In short, they are worth the money.
Because that’s what they charge for starring in a movie, and the people paying are okay with paying that much because they hope to make more money than it costs.
Back in the “studio era” up through the 50s they used to!
Usually they had deals for a certain number of movies signed with a particular studio for a yearly salary. But kinda like in sports, actors would get signed young and would realize how much money studios would make off of them and “free agency” began where they started negotiating deals per movie.
Because actors are not fungible – you cannot replace an actor with another and get exactly the same results.
For them, that is a “normal” salary based on what they bring to the final product. A movie that stars a multi-million dollar salary actors is statistically more likely to bring in more money than a movie starring a bunch of unknown names.
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