On his special last night ‘Comedy plus tragedy equals time’ Oswalt mentions how the tulalip casino offered him a huge sum of money to do a show. He doesn’t say how much, but mentions it is more than he has ever been offered before to do anything. If you haven’t seen the special this post probably won’t make much sense.
In the end of his story he mentions how he is able to pay for a year of his daughter’s college due to this gig. If that is true, that would be (assuming private school plus room and board) maybe 30-40k after taxes, so maybe 50-60k. To someone like Patton Oswalt who was the main character in ratatouille (which grossed half a billion) I find it hard to believe he would get so excited about that kind of paycheck.
This got me both curious and confused. I know some high level bands can do private shows for the wealthy for a million dollars or more, but that money is likely split between a lot of people involved in the show.
The idea of a decent but not top level comedian making a million dollars for a 30 minute set sounds unrealistic. But Oswalt getting excited over 50k (seeing how he is worth 10+ million) doesn’t sound realistic either.
Does anyone have any idea what ballpark he was talking about? I was really confused by this bit, and would like someone in the industry to explain this to me. I’m confused as to why a resort that charges $200-300 a night for rooms would pay 6 figures for a comedian to do one show (I’m assuming the figure he was offered was either high 5 figures or low 6 figures).
He also mentions the audience getting excited over $2 shots of hard liquor, which combined with the room costs which are about what a decent hotel in manhattan would charge makes it hard to figure out why they’d pay so much for a show for 400 people. Its like the holiday inn in Manhattan (which is also 200-300 a night) offered that kind of money for a 30 minute comedy show.
Six figures at least. The casino gets something to attract VIPs that gamble and a place for people to go get drunk so they stagger out to the casino and gamble.
True, but for 400 people, are they really going to recoup the cost of Oswalt’s set?
I suppose its possible. If each one of those 400 only lost $500 after Oswalt’s set, that works out to $200,000. And these were the high roller VIPs so I’m sure many lost more than $500.
If that is the goal, I wonder why they had shots of liquor for $2, why not just give them out for free? Maybe people appreciate a good deal more than something free.
I suspect you are seriously underestimating the current cost of tuition, room, and board. A good state school could cost an out-of-state student more than that. A good private school would be more like $60k a year, and there are probably some far more expensive than that.
Actors don’t normally get a cut of the gross, so his paycheck for the Ratatouille likely had nothing to do with how much the movie ultimately made.
Perhaps. I just checked, Harvard says they are about 66k for tuition plus room & board for a year. If Oswalt is in the highest tax bracket that works out to roughly 100k pre-tax.
It’s possible that a casino on an Indian reservation can afford to pay more for Oswalt because it pays less taxes than an American casino.
They are also outside of city limits, so they need big stars to alert people to their existence and location. Having shows is a good way of bringing people out there.
Most actors in animated films only work about ten or fifteen days to get through their part, and that can be spread over as much as three years. Even if you’re Tom Hanks* you don’t get paid all that much.
*Except maybe for the sequels, where there’s now some motivation for serious negotiation.
It’s not unheard of for top comics to get a couple hundred thousand for a show. I’m not sure how accurate thissite is, but it says Patton Oswalt charges a minimum of $30,000 for a domestic show. Sounds about right. I imagine Tulalip offered him something in the $100,000-150,000 range. For someone who likely spent years thankful for a $150 show, that’s a shit ton of money no matter how much he already has.
What’s in it for the casino: He sold out a 1,200 seat amphitheater. Figure $50 a ticket. That’s $60,000 right there. Lots of those people likely made it a night or a weekend, so that’s a couple hundred rooms, (some gambling), food, (some more gambling), massages, (why not gamble some), drinks, (hey did we try gambling?).
It’s a bit of a [del]gamble[/del] risk. Not all comics would make the venue money at that fee and Oswalt likely couldn’t get paid as much at other places. But in this particular case, Oswalt’s demo is younger nerdy guys and I hear the Seattle area has quite a few with deep pockets.
You also need to factor in that some of these gigs basically require you to do outside promotion, meet with VIPs to shake hands and sign things, or have dinner with others. It’s often not just show up for an hour to do comedy, then leave.
The goal isn’t necessarily to make a profit in that one night. When dealing with whales the goal is also to get them to make your casino their primary gambling destination.
(Though I have no idea if this would have been something targeted primarily at whales.)
I think that’s a fair guess. So he probably netted more from this gig than he grosses at a typical large show. For those who haven’t seen the special, the point of the bit is that he made all this money while not doing any jokes: the audience was so ragingly drunk that the casino wanted him to keep his set to 30 minutes - I’m sure that’s partly because they didn’t want their customers to stop gambling for too long, but I’m guessing they also knew they wouldn’t sit still for much longer than that - and the crowd spent most of that time just yelling the names of his old characters at him. He says he didn’t tell one joke. I’ll chalk that up to exaggeration but he says the casino was thrilled with whatever he did and said he could play any of their casinos whenever he wanted. So the point is that whatever very good living he’s making now, he could make even more doing practically no work for these terrible casino crowds. It’s a bit about what selling out “really” looks like as compared to what he thought it looked like when he was young.
He says he spent maybe 10 or 15 minutes shaking hands with 40 VIPs two hours before the show.
It’s not the venue where the special was shot. It’s a gig he had played some time earlier and he tells the story during his special.
Plus, the venue doesn’t sell the show. I’m sure they get some sort of extra payment, depending on the contract, but the artist or the production company would own it.