Ridley Scott decided he wanted to reshoot numerous scenes from the upcoming movie “All The Money In The World” in order to remove Kevin Spacey from it completely.
Mark Wahlberg agreed to take part in the reshoot, in exchange for about $1.5M.
Michelle Williams agreed to take part in the reshoot, basically volunteering her time for about $1000. In total. AIUI, she didn’t ask for $1.5M and then get stonewalled: her opening offer was $80 per day, which was quickly accepted without any counteroffer.
People are now citing this as an example of the “gender pay gap” in Hollywood and elsewhere.
-I don’t claim Mark Wahlberg is any kind of saint, but he was specifically painted as some kind of bad guy over this pay gap, and was badgered into donating his entire $1.5 pay to the Time’s Up charity.
So what gives? Is Wahlberg a jerk because he insisted on being paid for his time, instead of donating his time to the effort to erase Kevin Spacey from the movie? Was Williams shortchanged by the other people involved in this, or did she shortchange herself by asking for only $80/day in the first place? Was she shortchanged at all, given that she got exactly what she asked for? Is this truly a gender pay gap issue that paints Hollywood in a bad light, or is it just a case of two people placing vastly different values on their time, and/or viewing the reshoot through two different lenses (no pun intended) - that is, one (Williams) see it as a social cause worth volunteering her time for, and the other (Wahlberg) views it as a business venture from which he wishes to extract his due compensation?
My understanding thought is that Scott was saying that everyone was doing it for basically free (outside of crew members). It came out later that that wasn’t the case. I’m unclear if Williams was told that everyone was doing it for free and didn’t know that Wahlberg has asked for 1.5 million.
Wahlberg and Williams are repped by the same agency.
Wahlberg’s contract has a “Reshoots = millions” clause.
William’s contract says reshoots are at scale.
Wahlberg opens movies.
Williams doesn’t.
There really isn’t any there there. It isn’t an example of unfair wages to females or anything like that. The story just broke at a time when people would get upset about it.
My understanding is that all 3 parties (the two actors and the “film”) had the same agency, albeit different agents. So someone knew or should have known that Michelle was only getting scale while Mark was getting $1.5mm. If there is an example of the gender pay gap here, it might lie with the agency and how they represent their talent.
I definitely feel that there is some mis-placed outrage here, if there should be any outrage at all.
What I read is that everyone had signed on for the reshoots for, essentially, nothing. Except for Wahlberg. So his agent was able to negotiate the $1.5 million because they had the studio up against a wall. Michelle Williams had assumed that everyone was on the same page of accepting the minimal payment. (I think the eighty bucks per day is scale.)
So yes, Wahlberg did nothing wrong, but it looked really bad at this time of the metoo movement. So for him to give up the money was a face-saving maneuver.
What is ridiculous is it did not appear that the Kevin Spacey behavior was a secret, yet someone chose him anyway. Then when it comes out and Kevin becomes a toxic commodity, they want to re-shoot. They should not expect anyone to do it for basically free.
If they had to re-shoot because the actor died during filming and they could not “shoot around” it, that might be one thing, but to have used someone they knew had such a history and then they decide to “erase” him from the movie and still have it in theaters on the original release schedule, they should have compensated the others based on how much they personally had to re-shoot.
I get that Mark’s agent asked for it in the original contract, but these were extenuating circumstances that the studio generated. They should have done the right thing and paid all the actors more for these re-shoots.
But even if it was the same talent agency these are individual and confidential matters. Professional ethics and old fashioned business sense means the agents wouldn’t be revealing each clients contract.
If you went to a lawyer or a doctor you would not expect your file to be open to the whole building. Or even your colleague next door. Confidentiality and privacy are important. If not then talent agencies would lose their clients.
Whether it’s a gender pay gap or not, that big a difference is way too high, and should not have happened. This is the disparity between extras and main talent, not fellow stars, even if they may not shine as bright.
I agree that, given what we know, Wahlberg himself did nothing wrong. But that’s true in most pay gap situations. I can’t recall anyone getting mad at the guy receiving more money.
No, but lawyers and doctors are doing something with private information. I very well would expect their performance to be known. Not necessarily by the other employees, but the employer would know. How else can you judge if they’re doing a good job?
Same here. Negotiating is their job, and how much they can get shows their performance. So I definitely expect someone in the company to know, even if they have to keep it quiet in general.
Wahlberg happens to be a scumbag but had nothing to do with the disparity in pay situation. And even if he did it doesn’t matter because this isn’t about two people doing the same work, or comparable work. These are actors, they don’t have jobs, they all negotiate what they get paid on an independent basis. There are actual cases where women get paid less than men for doing the same work, this is not one of them. Those women aren’t millionaires complaining because they didn’t make as much money as some other millionaire.
OT I know, but I still can’t wrap my head around Mark Wahlberg being a huge movie star. It’s interesting how pure documented assholes can rise to prominence nowadays.
That should be the only outrage here. Michelle Williams should tell that asswipe to take his money and give it to the people he assaulted and refuses to take responsibility for.
I’ve accepted— with considerable difficulty— that he’s a big movie star, but accepting that he’s the highest paid actor in Hollywood is an insurmountable task.
Wahlberg had co-star approval in his contract. He had to approve Plummer replacing Spacey, that’s why he had the leverage to get $1.5M for the re-shoot to happen.
From USA Today, "Mark Wahlberg refused to approve Christopher Plummer as a replacement for Kevin Spacey in All the Money in the World unless he was paid over a million dollars for the reshoot, USA TODAY has learned.
Wahlberg had co-star approval in his contract, two people familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly about it tell USA TODAY."