The TV series 'Entourage" is, ironically, extremely disparaging about TV work. The TV department of the agencies is looked down on, TV agents are patronized and the top film actors look shocked at the mere suggestion of doing a TV show. At one point Ari Gold instantly fires one of his agents in a meeting for suggesting a key client do a TV show.
Is this really how TV is viewed in Hollywood? If so, why? Does it tend to pay that much less than films? Does it damage career prospects that badly?
It’s based on Mark Wahlbergs early career so I would imagine so, yes.
Entourage is a comedy television show about a movie star. So of course it’s going to slam television. That’s part of the joke.
The numbers are different, but not all that different at the very top. A handful of people make a million or more per episode on tv. The cast of Friends started it when each of the six signed for a million per episode for the last season. Charlie Sheen was making over 1.5 million before he got fired. That’s well over $30 million a year.
Only the few top movie stars can make that much, although deals to give them points of the gross can raise that much higher.
The real differences appear just below that handful. Getting several million for a picture is standard. I read that Ving Rhames made $7.7 million for his cameo in Mission Impossible 4. True? No idea. But it’s not out of line for blockbusters. Few people on television make several million a year, although most leads make 2 or 3 million. (Admittedly, a tv season is longer than most movie shoots.)
The respect levels really are higher though. The world is abuzz about the Oscars. Who cares about the Emmys?
TV is more prestigious than it once was, but it’s still less prestigious than movies. There are many B-list actors and well respected character actors who do TV, but I don’t know if any current A-list stars have ever taken a starring role on TV.
I think there’s a few reasons that there’s been less top stars doing TV. One is the time involved. It’s a much different time commitment to make either a 2 hour movie as opposed to around 10 hours for a cable TV season or 16 hours for network TV season (assuming a 13 or 22 episode season minus commercials). And most TV shows expect or at least hope for multiple seasons. One of the advantages of being one of the top stars is being able to do pretty much whatever project you want; it makes sense to me that they’d have less desire to be tied to one project for extended periods.
Another thing is I’ve read multiple places how people are more likely to approach TV stars compared to movie stars. With movie stars you seem them a few times a year and often on the big screen if you see the movie in theaters. With TV stars you see them every week in your home, and you connect with the character and thus the actor more as you watch that character over the season and the series. I could understand actors wanting to have more privacy and be less bothered by people coming up to them all the time.
This is a slight hijack, but I read that he wanted $7.7 million to have a major role in the movie, which sounds reasonable for an actor’s salary in a high-grossing franchise. That much money for a cameo would be very rare, and probably one of the highest (if not the highest) payment per minute on screen.