fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3862 ]

[ SECRET POST #3862 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3862 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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02.

[FunkoPOP]

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03.

[Game of Thrones]

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04.

[Power Rangers 2017, Erica Cerra]

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05.

[Legend of Korra]

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06.

[Peter Capaldi]

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07.

[Gerard Way in "Ghost of You", Harry Styles in Dunkirk]

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08.

[Fargo Season 3]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #553.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I so don't know how to come at this. Like, if it's true he was only paid that much, my gut reaction is to feel incensed on his behalf that he was so insultingly underpaid.

But then my brain is like, the takeaway from this should probably be that American actors are absurdly and nonsensically overpaid. Because if we don't compare his wages to an American lead actor's wages, 200K a year for a 13 episode season is honestly pretty sweet by all rational standards of measurement.

But then my third thought is that actors - even the ones getting paid an absurd 20 million a movie - are not actually The Problem with America/the American economy/American capitalism. There are so many other, infinitely more dire, places to point the finger in that regard, that latching onto actor's paychecks as a thing that Is A Problem and Should Be Changed just feels needlessly persnickety and unhelpful.

But then, if I'm going to accept American actor's paychecks as valid, that leads me back to Capaldi having been insultingly underpaid. Lol.

I mostly agree with this. But I think that while in one sense actors are overpaid, in another sense they're not overpaid, because their paychecks are entirely a result of the value of their actual labor.

This is true only in the sense that lead actors are paid in accordance with how much a movie they star in tends to earn.

By that metric, sound guys and location scouts and grips and stand-ins should all be paid on the basis of how well the films they work on are statistically likely to perform. But they're not.

Also, most American actors do not make millions because only a minority can command that kind of paycheck. Many probably make less than Capaldi in a good year.

Still, for the lead in a very popular show, it seems low.

(Remember that a traditional American network hour-long drama is something like 25 eposodes, not 13.)

Oh trust me, I know most actors don't make bank. I work in the film industry myself. For most actors, success is being able to act full time without needing a second job to make ends meet. That's why I specified in my comment that I was talking specifically about lead actors.

Also, I'd say its been well over a decade since 25 episode seasons were the norm. Thats why I specified 13 episode seasons in my comment. Because a 13 ep season is short enough to leave the actor plenty of time for family/fun/persuing other projects and just generally living, when the show isn't filming. I cant even imagine what it's like filming a 25 episode drama season for a lead actor. It eats your entire life, basically.

I'm inclined to say American actors are overpaid because they account for a hell of a lot for the budget and the other people working on the production don't get paid nearly as much.

As much as you might say "they are the face of the franchise" I still don't think the gaps in pay should be THAT large. Especially in instances where there is a lot of animation in something and art staff is putting in just as many hours and just as much as themselves but aren't getting as much pay and basically never get residuals.

Plus let's remember people working those hours who may not even be making any money, like unpaid interns and the amount of people who don't get paid for their overtime.

IDK I think you can have problems with American capitalism in a multitude of ways, you don't have to pick just one thing to have an issue with so it's ok to call out actors for being overpaid.

IMO the best way to characterize the problem is that the people around them are underpaid, not that they are overpaid.

Well, two sides of the same coin because working in production they'll essentially be "budget budget budget" with you all the time, so if an actor is getting paid X amount of money, yeah that can fuck over other people in the production.

I'm not saying it's entirely the fault of the actor but they are contributing to that system whether they agree with it or not.

It's not two sides of the same coin! That's my whole point. The people setting the budget and the wages are setting those things at a level that doesn't fairly compensate the people working for their labor - systematically, across the whole enterprise. The actors are the only ones lucky enough to be paid what they're worth. Bringing them down isn't the solution, the solution is increasing wages systematically.

But if you only have X amount of money how is raising the wages possible? It's easier to say that actors should be paid less if there truly are budget concerns.

I also don't necessarily agree that actors are "worth" what they are paid, especially when some are paid millions. They may be worth a lot, but millions? That's hard to gauge.

But if you only have X amount of money how is raising the wages possible? It's easier to say that actors should be paid less if there truly are budget concerns.

Those numbers aren't written in the stars, they're numbers that are chosen and decided and negotiated and all of that. More money should be spent on wages.

I also don't necessarily agree that actors are "worth" what they are paid, especially when some are paid millions. They may be worth a lot, but millions? That's hard to gauge.

They're worth it in the sense that the movies they're in make a lot of money because of them, which is why they get paid that much money.

Those numbers aren't written in the stars, they're numbers that are chosen and decided and negotiated and all of that. More money should be spent on wages.

Right, so if you have X amount of money, you should spend more on wages for the production team, but then that means you have less for your actor. The budget may not be written in the stars but they are very real, even on big productions with big budgets there are always places they have to limit. If the actor salaries are not being limited, then it HAS to be limited somewhere else, and that usually falls on the rest of the production team.

You can't just say "wages should be raised" but expect everything to remain the same for everyone in production, that money has to come from somewhere. As nice as it would be for budgets to be unlimited it doesn't actually work that way.

They're worth it in the sense that the movies they're in make a lot of money because of them

But movies don't make money solely because of actors, they help sell the brand but tons of movies with big name actors flop and many movies with no-names do well. That means actors aren't the ONLY reason a movie does well. A lot of people in production are just as valuable to a movie, writers, directors, storyboard artists, animators, etc. A lot of those people also spend more time on the project then actors do. Animators even do part of the acting, why aren't they paid just as well? Who determined that actors are "worth" that much? Why would taking in slightly less be a problem (especially if they're still paid well?)

Right, so if you have X amount of money, you should spend more on wages for the production team, but then that means you have less for your actor. The budget may not be written in the stars but they are very real, even on big productions with big budgets there are always places they have to limit. If the actor salaries are not being limited, then it HAS to be limited somewhere else, and that usually falls on the rest of the production team.

It shouldn't fall on the rest of the production team. It only does because they don't have enough leverage and power. It should fall from the owners.

But movies don't make money solely because of actors, they help sell the brand but tons of movies with big name actors flop and many movies with no-names do well. That means actors aren't the ONLY reason a movie does well. A lot of people in production are just as valuable to a movie, writers, directors, storyboard artists, animators, etc. A lot of those people also spend more time on the project then actors do. Animators even do part of the acting, why aren't they paid just as well? Who determined that actors are "worth" that much? Why would taking in slightly less be a problem (especially if they're still paid well?)

Fair enough. I don't have any idea how to judge the various contributions those people make. What I do know is that, if nothing else, they must be at least that valuable to the movie. Or the people in charge of the movie must think that they're that valuable. Because if they didn't, they wouldn't pay them. That's all I'm saying.

Producers generally don't get a big pile of money to split between actors and crew. Actor salaries are negotiable to a certain degree. No one's going to pay Chris Pratt $12 million to do art-house Shakespeare. They'll get someone willing to do Hamlet at a price they can finance based on expected revenue.

And on the production end, producers usually will have storyboarded the script and created a massive spreadsheet accounting for all photography and technical costs down to the hour and the muffin. Their effects contractors will have their own massive spreadsheets accounting for hours per frame. At least some of the production labor is unionized, and those folks get paid at the negotiated rate if they're on site.

All of this is going to go into financing the film. And a lot of movies don't get financed if they're high-budget and high-risk. Del Toro and Gilliam are both known for shelving projects they can't get financed. Besson famously raised his own venture capital for Valerian.

I read somewhere that back in the day, Charlie Sheen was banking 1.25 million PER EPISODE of "Two and a Half Men". That blows my damn mind.

I don't know. Only a handful of actors can demand more than $10 million for a job. For The Force Awakens, only Ford got paid that much. Hamill and Fisher reportedly got paid more than a million, the rest of the primary cast were in the mid-low six figures.

A quarter million U.S. for a short season seems middling.

I would call 200K per episode middling to good. 200K to play the lead in an incredibly famous and well established series for an entire season? That's absurdly low, by American standards.

This list of highest paid primetime salaries starts to give you the picture. Naturally, the comedy actors tend to make more - that's basically just how it is. But just off of that list, we've got the actors who played House, Tony Soprano, Rick Grimes, Daryl Dixon, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, and a bunch from Game of Thrones - all of them making 500K+ per episode.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_paid_American_television_stars

Derp

Yep, apples to oranges.

1. different revenue model
2. different market
3. picking the top 1% of earners.

DA

O...kay? None of this actually negates what AYRT or the OP are saying, which is that other leads in far less famous and well-loved TV shows are making a dozen times the money Capaldi is making. Regardless of why that is, it seems insultingly unfair to Capaldi.

While Doctor Who is a fandom darling, it's not pulling the numbers of American primetime. More importantly, it's not pulling the advertising revenue. That's entirely due to primetime taking the best time slots on the networks with the broadest reach.

it still perturbs me that fucking judge judy is the highest paid person on american tv

This list of highest paid primetime salaries starts to give you the picture.

American "primetime" has the historic advantage of a limited-competition cartel with guaranteed national distribution. It's called "primetime" because it's an advertising cash cow for traditional American networks. I'd argue that American primetime budgets have been historically inflated by artificial scarcity. Game of Thrones is a curve-busting anomaly in the industry with 3X the budget of an American show and 6X the budget of a Doctor Who episode.

The BBC, in contrast, is largely a tax-funded public television network and they're still third-tier cable in many international markets. So it strikes me as an apples to oranges comparison.

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[ SECRET POST #3862 ]

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Forgot the actual link!

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