If Rush Hour 19 fails, all the actors lose money, even Chris Tucker. It's called Opportunity Cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

I like you guys though. Especially Doug. Put up MP3s of your stand-up.

Bravo. Best podcast I've heard so far.
But hey, could there be a link to the LA times article?

just wanna say that it's always nice when Darren is onboard!

and this was a damn good podcast by the way...i'm with Darren all the way about the royaltees...

I agree with John on the royalties issue, if I put up the money to something and its successful I want at least my money back.

Tut tut though John trying to pick up girls after seeing Tristan & Isolde, nice try :p

As to the Worst of 05 have none of you or even Ebert & Roeper seen Guy Ritchie's "Revolver" I will go so far as to say I preferred Dukes and Bigalow over that piece of crap.

As to the porn druids of the forest, i may have to carry on the long running tradition. :p

Guys,

I just wanna say that the round table Mondays are f*cking hilarious. Your guys are like "The Comedian Tripod".

I don't have time to watch tv in the weekdays, and the "Audio Edition" delivers entertainment flawlessly through the week. Thanks!
Also, don't restrict yourselves to a certain number of mins. Heck, I'd say the longer the better... :o)

John,

I love the podcast and even though I rarely agree with your take on movies, I keep listening because your passion for films comes through so clearly. Not to mention that you and Doug are just flat out entertaining.

I'm not going to question where your stance on actor compensation comes from but let me offer my take. It differs from yours, but here goes:

Whatever we think about the product they turn out, movie producers are not complete financial idiots. The reason they offer these amazing deals to the top level talent is because they feel that they will still be able to make a profit from multiple income streams related to the film. If they did not think they could profit in some way from the production of a big budget film with a financial structure that weighs so heavily in favor of the on screen talent, they wouldn't be in this business. Nobody forces them to offer these deals. They are a result of open competition between the studios / producers and the agents / actors / directors /writers / DPs etc. for their services.

Do movies lose money? Sure. Do big movies lose a LOT of money? Not so clear. Studios have all sorts of reasons for investing in a particular project and not all of them have to do with obvious measures of profitability. The notion of a loss leader that drives other elements of your business applies to Wal-Mart's $5 DVDs and Apple's $0.99 songs on iTunes. And it certainly applies to the film production arms of your modern conglomerate.

Studios gripe publicly about paying a Tom Cruise the GNP of a small Eurpoean country to do MI-III while they count their DVD advances, game sales and merchandising deals in a much less overt manner.

We can rail all we want, but Hollywood blockbusters don't cost as much as they do only because of star compensation packages. They have more to do with the opaque financial structures of the production houses than they do with the easy target of "runaway" production costs.

The proposed system as described in the LA Times article can be (very roughly) compared to the situation in two sports leagues here in the States.

The studios believe that they are currently in the position of MLB teams that feel helpless to stop themselves from paying the lifetime .250 / 15 HR outfielder $5 million a year. So they want to go to the ballplayer (actor) and say: save me from my own bad habits. But if the market just happens to be thin for that type of player, the team needs to make a public show of trying to win or the owner needs some extra expenses on his bottom line to offset other gains, then they sign him and proclaim to the world that he's the next Willie Mays. Chris Tucker had a good season (one big hit) that was above anyones expectations for his career and the studio thinks they're getting the guy who had 150 RBI's last year, not the bit player from House Party 3. The utility player Chris Tucker may or may not cause severe financial disruption to the studio, but they hopefully learn from their mistake and move on.

If they are serious in their desire to reform the current system then they need to aim for an NFL type salary model where there is true profit sharing between the players on the field and the management that owns the teams. That would be great for all involved but not likely to happen.

The history of film production gives us no indication that the studios can be trusted to enter into any arrangement the pre-requisite of which is financial transparency. Their fiscal pressures are so different from those of the handful of actors or directors who can command such a deal and there would be no mechanism to ensure an honest accounting of the very large sums of money involved. (I could bring up the Paramount and Art Buchwald case here, but that would be too obvious!)

I guess my point is to not obsess over actor pay deals. Find me an actor who produced less in relation to what he was paid for a participating in a project than Ovitz did during his tenure at Disney. It's all about what goes on beyond the public gaze in Hollywood boardrooms. And in honor of the 300th birthday of Mr. Franklin, I remind you that itís all about the Benjamins.

My taste in films generally don't run towards the expensive, CGI heavy movies you guys talk about. I just happen to find smaller films a bit more interesting and entertaining. But I do enjoy the occasional blockbuster. And I think I understand the decision making that goes into putting out one these things. The studios can poor mouth all they want to and blame piracy, union labor and other production costs for their lack of profitability. Those factors may be outside their ability to control. But the contracts they enter into with the star director or actor are completely up them.

In a free market system they are paying a sum that reflects the value they place on the services of the actor involved. Both parties consider future cash flows, opportunity cost and other elements before they sign on the dotted line. The numbers may seem outlandish to us, but to the two sides they make perfect sense. More often than not, one side in the contract feels shortchanged, but that's the risk anyone takes when they enter into a business agreement.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Keep up the good work gentlemen. Your podcast is one of the highlights of my day!

Didn't see a comments section for the January 13th show, so I just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents about the "bankable" issue here. Quite simply, I think a "bankable" star gets a movie greenlit and made. This, of course, is completely related to the budget and scale of the picture. Cary Elwes and Danny Glover made "Saw" "bankable" and a reasonable investment for the studio, even though those 2 stars would never get a $100 million movie made. I don't think that all studio executives (although I'm sure there a good number who do) think of a magical number of dollars that a star will bring to the box office. But I'm sure they do think about which actors will have built-in audiences. I don't think studios believe that a top-tier actor will magically make a pile of crap movie reach the 100 million mark. But it definitely helps. If Brad Pitt drops out of a movie, it will have trouble getting made. If Spielberg drops out of a picture, it will have trouble getting made. But it all has to do with scale.

Film Fan: I don't think it applies to Tom Cruise or any other actor who also happens to serve as a producer.

john,

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Ford, and Willis. it's strange how the studios continue to rehire actors even if their movies fail. Well "fail" for all we know could be a profit for them! I don't know exactly how the business of hollywood runs. I've seen articles from Edward J Epstein where he talks about how Paramount made Tomb Raider for a very small amount of dough, using foreign investment money for the rest of the 100 mil budget. Epstein talks about how box office isn't how the studios make most of their money anymore, and that most of it comes from DVD and TV. Where once the movie studios were entirely box office driven, now its exactly the opposite. So Hollywood isn't always entirely apparent in its business practices.

In this audio edition, you said 100 million goes directly to the studio, but you forgot they have to share their money to theaters. According to Epstein, sometimes 1/2 of the opening weekend goes to the theaters. And giving out budget numbers that the public cannot truly verify if its true or not could be a deceptive way of promotion and hype. So when you hear about Warners "spending" 300 million(a figure that I think is a big fat LIE) for Superman Returns, people get either shocked or excited to see a 300 mil movie.

Oh yea, i agree with Film Fan and his post up there! Studios have brains too. Listening to you, It's obvious you think you can run a studio better than the studios can. Just from looking at boxofficemojo and reading internet movie sites, you think you're smarter than they are.

Once again Jack proves he doesn't actually listen to the show before opening his mouth.

I did... as a matter of fact, mention the theaters take. Listen again.

As far as the other nonsense in your comments... I won't even bother to respond.

Jack... if you hate the show so much, and dislike everything we say soooo much... do me a favour, get a life, and go find something you do enjoy and stop wasting my bandwidth and my time.

Just a very small comment vis a vis royalties - Doug, I think you might have a view on this as you are a practicising musician.....

JC, I almost totally agree on yr points regarding investment in films and the financial outlay by backers, but I thought I might add.....

Artistic endeavours are never a sure bet. You can't BANK on a film making money, inasmuch as you can't bet on horses, surely. Investors should be able to recoup their investment, but, at the end of the day, it's a BET on whether films make money or not. Granted, the presence of an A list actor should help, and that is what they are being richly rewarded for, but.........

It is, at the end of the day, as Doug pointed out, an ARTISTIC endeavour.

The point I wanted to make is this - In music, artists are paid for their PERFORMANCE, and given royalties accordingly. Obviously, with a diminished input, they are paid less, But.. The Point I am trying to make is thus - If a performance sells a film (think J. Depp in POTC) then the royalties on that film are EARNED, yes?

Performance is EXACTLY what actors are paid for to bring to the role, whereas gaffers and camera men are just fulfilling a role?

Hence, if the film succeeds on the strength of a performance, isn't a performance royalty due? Moreover, isn't that performance tied into the financial longevity of the project as a whole? Is this an area where there intangibility of artistic performance meets the cold hard cash of reality?

I just don't think that you can throw off the contribution of an artist to the total success of a project as an entirely financial one. Obviously the people that stumped up the cash in the first place should be compensated, but they aren't the ones who have to sell it in the multiplexes, and that is what (as you pointed out)they are being paid for. But, the project lives and dies on the strength of the product, and that is what the actors bring to to table.

I just don't think that you can disregard the principals performer's role in relation to the sucess of the project that way. It defines the project. And, if it is successful, I don't think it's wrong to reward them.

If it's a turkey, forget it.

Again, I agree with you (as opinionated as you are are) in that the backers should get first cut, but, they aren't making it, are they? Should they refer to them in instances of confusion?

PS - Love yr podcasts. Best ones on the Net, as far as I'm concerned. Doug is unmined gold. Will be voting for ya on the bloggies.

Just stop confusing your own opinions as fact. Cool yr boots.

Great podcast guys! Definately one of the best EVER!

Yes studios take all the risk. But they also control the negotiations. If they agree to a a deal where a large percentage of the BO returns are spoken for, then they have assumed that additional risk.

As for royalties - it has become somewhat blurred today because the salary of actors has escalated so much. When it was implemented the actors were being paid scale in those days so royalties were created.

An actor is paid for their performance for a specific piece of work. I don't see an issue with sharing the profits in ancilliary products.