You may have heard that Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe is opening in his first Broadway musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in March. Of course they are expecting the show to run for a while. Meanwhile, Deathly Hallows Part 2 is opening in July and Radcliffe is expected to help promote the movie, attend the premiere(s), etc.
So apparently Warner Bros. has bought up a half a million dollars’ worth of tickets to the Broadway show so that he can go to London and wherever and do this stuff. The story is that they are really ticked off about this added expense (although maybe that’s part of the hype machine).
So my question is – why is this a surprise? Surely busy working actors have scheduling clashes all the time. Is it the dollar amount? Could Warners have put something in Radcliffe’s contract about “You hereby promise not to star in Broadway musicals and hence be unavailable to do promo work for something you finished a year ago…”? How does this work?