Time Network special article remuneration of 160 million, daily salary of 2.08 million! A few days ago, actress Zheng Shuang was exposed to "sky-high film remuneration" and suspected of "yin and yang contracts" to evade taxes, which shocked the "melon-eating masses" and triggered a shock to public opinion. Although the problem of the sky-high remuneration of stars has existed for many years, it has still become the focus of attention.
As early as 2016, the two stars of the TV series "Ruyi Zhuan", Zhou Xun and Huo Jianhua, were paid a total of 150 million yuan, and they were publicly named by CCTV News. In 2018, the news that Fan Bingbing was paid 60 million yuan for 4 days also caused an uproar and caused public anger.
The soaring sky-high salaries of domestic stars have stung the public's nerves again and again, causing waves one after another and causing huge controversy. So, in Hollywood, where film and television entertainment is developed, how high are the stars' salaries? In recent years, when the streaming media war has been escalating, what is the standard of Hollywood star remuneration? And those stars who earn sky-high salaries, have they been shouted at by everyone?
Hollywood is the place of origin of sky-high film remuneration
Many people will be shocked and feel unreasonable, but in Hollywood, it is not uncommon to pay more than 100 million, and it is a dollar.
At the beginning of April this year, foreign media reported that Netflix will create two sequels to "Sharp Blade Out of the Sheath", in which the lead actor "007" Daniel Craig, director and producer will each receive up to $100 million in salaries, which makes people shocked. Compared with the film remuneration of Hollywood's first-line superstars, the sky-high film remuneration of Chinese stars is instantly less "sky-high". If this film is signed together by two films, the figure of $50 million per film has already exceeded that of Hollywood's first-line giants.
Daniel Craig
In general, 20 million is a watershed between superstars and stars. Hollywood, which created the "star system", also created a term to evaluate the market value of actors - "$20 million club". Here gathers those most bare-handed, with a strong box office gold attraction of the first-line superstars, in addition to the value, this non-real "club" is also an affirmation of the comprehensive value of acting skills and stars.
As early as 20 years ago, when star remuneration was still unknown in China, Hollywood superstars such as Nicholas Cage, Kim Carey, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, John Wüvota, Robin Williams and Bruce Willis had already joined the honor club.
These first-line superstars, in addition to being paid more than $20 million for a play, also participate in the film box office dividends, ranging from 15% to more than 20%. For example, in 2003, when Keanu Reeves starred in "The Matrix 2 and 3", the film was paid $30 million, plus box office dividends, and the final income was as high as $156 million. In 2003, Terminator 3 grossed $433 million worldwide, including $29.25 million for starring Schwarzenegger, plus 20% of the box office dividend.
Keanu Reeves
As a superstar guaranteed at the box office, he has a great influence on the market and also influences investment decisions. For the remuneration and additional dividends that have repeatedly broken through the ceiling, the production boss has to pay and has no choice. When Brother Tang starred in "Mission Impossible 1 and 2" that year, the film remuneration plus box office dividends reached 70 million and 75 million US dollars respectively, which made the owner Paramount boss Lei Shidong very dissatisfied, and then due to some reasons such as the North American box office of "Mission Impossible 3" far lower than expected, in 2006, Paramount unilaterally announced the termination of the 14-year-long cooperative relationship with Liang Tang, which was shocking for a while.
At that time, some experts analyzed that the film company sent away the big-name movie stars because they asked for too high a price and were "living bodhisattvas" who could not afford to support them. However, 5 years later, the filmmakers had to invite back Brother Atang, because the filmmakers still had to rely on these superstars to grab the box office from the audience, and "people can no longer ignore the leading role played by the top talents in the entertainment industry."
Curb sky-high film remuneration, what does Hollywood do?
In the 1990s, the average production cost of Hollywood doubled, and the increase was mainly in terms of star salaries, often before the film was filmed, the big stars had already taken most of the costs, and Hollywood was once mired in the quagmire of sky-high film remuneration.
In order to curb the rising and indiscriminate bidding chaos of film remuneration, Hollywood filmmakers have explored new ways of cooperation, converting star remuneration into revenue sharing, and bundling with stars to form a "community of destiny" and sharing risks. That is, before filming begins, persuade the stars to reduce the advance payment, and then let them participate in the box office share or the revenue share of the whole copyright after the film is released.
In layman's terms, after reducing the basic salary of stars, if the box office of the film is considerable after the release of the film, the star can get a share of the box office and reap more returns than the previous fixed film remuneration; if the market performance is not good, then the star will also share part of the loss. At present, there is also a domestic way of learning from the "basic salary plus share" of this kind of film remuneration cooperation.
However, some filmmakers will also directly give ultra-high fixed film remuneration, such as the $100 million sky-high film remuneration of Robert Downey Jr. in "Reunion 4". Because the performance of the Marvel Film Market has been stable and the risk is small, the filmmakers have not chosen the cooperation method of box office share.
Robert Downey Jr
In addition, in the past few decades, the Screen Actors Guild of America has continuously balanced the salaries of stars and ordinary actors, clearly stipulating the budgets of different types of dramas and the minimum salary of actors in the role, most actors have shrunk their salaries, but because there is no limit on the maximum salary, there are still some superstars who get sky-high salaries.
These sky-high film remuneration, as long as the proportion of the total production cost is less than 40%, will not affect the reasonable production. In Hollywood, the proportion of star salaries is mostly 10%-30%, even if the actor's salary is as high as 100 million US dollars, as long as the total investment exceeds 300 million US dollars, the so-called sky-high film remuneration is also reasonable. Coupled with the fact that these high-paid superstars can bring huge box office revenue around the world, produce huge market influence, and have excellent business capabilities, the sky-high film remuneration of Hollywood stars is rarely criticized.
Hollywood film remuneration rankings in recent years
Streaming media continues to raise the salaries of actors
Earlier, Hollywood's high-priced film remuneration gave birth to the actor's "$20 million club", and now, with the strong entry of streaming media such as Netflix, Disney+, And Apple TV+ in recent years, the actor's remuneration has diverged into a new "American drama million-dollar film payment club". Moreover, with the fierce competition for self-made dramas on various platforms, the remuneration of actors has risen, and the membership of this club has also expanded rapidly.
In 2019, Apple TV+, which has just entered the streaming track, paid Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, the two stars of the self-made drama "Morning News", a single episode of $1 million each.
Jennifer Aniston & Reese Witherspoon
Although the previous American dramas "Friends", "The Big Bang Theory", "House of Cards", "The Walking Dead", "Game of Thrones" and so on have also been paid such a single episode in later seasons, it is still relatively rare for "Morning News" to offer such a price at the beginning of the broadcast.
In addition, Stars such as Jeff Bridges in Hulu's self-made drama "Old Man", Steve Carell starring in Netflix's "Space Force", and Nicole Kidman, star of Hulu's "Nine Perfect Strangers", have also received millions of salaries. HBO Max's "Stairs Unsolved" paid harrison Ford, a veteran star who appeared in the series for the first time, $1.2 million in a single episode.
Nicole Kidman, "Nine Perfect Strangers"
It can be seen that the million-dollar salary of a single episode is not unusual now, and the salary structure of traditional dramas of hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode has been completely subverted by the streaming media of "not bad money", which has fundamentally changed the weight of the Hollywood film and television industry's attraction to actors. Senior Hollywood agents said, "As long as the film is paid enough, the star has a schedule." The mentality of looking down on TV dramas is now a thing of the past, and maybe one day Leonardo DiCaprio will come to make a streaming limited drama. ”
The newly entered streaming media, due to the single broadcast channel, can only attract users to subscribe, and grab more user resources to obtain revenue. As a result, streaming media opened the situation through huge production costs and superstars with market appeal from the beginning, invested much more than traditional public networks and cable TV stations in order to compete for first-line actors, and retained users by creating high-quality content.
In this competition of production costs, the input costs of various platforms have continued to climb, promoting the arrival of the so-called "golden age of TV dramas", while also raising the overall salary level of actors.
Harrison Ford, "The Staircase Unsolved Case"
If you want to find a great star, you have to pay a bigger price tag. The temptation of sky-high film remuneration has also made first-class movie stars and directors pour into the small screen, and in the mutually beneficial cooperation in which the film remuneration has broken through the peak of sky-high prices, superstars and streaming media have achieved each other and achieved a win-win situation.
Streaming media with Internet genes, natural data thinking often values the "traffic" and "popularity" of actors. Under the "connivance" of streaming media, in addition to spending huge sums of money to poach superstars, popular traffic stars have also become their first choice. This in turn has also led to some stars "carrying traffic self-respect", quoting in the sky, and the film remuneration far exceeds their own business ability and influence, which has spawned a large wave of traffic small students and small flowers, and domestic stars such as Zheng Shuang are examples.
Hollywood traffic flowers are also paid a lot. With the "Little 11" Millie Bobby Brown, who became popular in the "Stranger Things" series in the United States, was paid $6.1 million when she starred in "Miss Sherlock Holmes" at the age of 15 in 2019, plus she was still the producer of the film, and she would receive at least 500,000 basic salary. In addition, including the box office share, the total film remuneration reached more than 7 million US dollars.
"Little 11" Millie Bobby Brown
On the whole, the high remuneration under the traditional big studios in Hollywood is reasonably high because the works face a huge global market and can obtain huge box office returns. However, the generous streaming media is to some extent "making trouble", the reason is that the streaming media is not relying on the box office to obtain revenue, but the membership fee, the algorithm of film remuneration is very different from the past, so there is a phenomenon of "willful" raising the actor's film remuneration and production costs.