I mean damn, it’s ridiculous. They get millions and all they do is act. Is it just because we accept paying for it?
They’re in high demand. It’s like Bank Managers. If they don’t get what they want from one company they’ll work for another.
If an actor in high demand doesn’t get paid enough for one role they’ll refuse it and go for one of the ten offers that does pay what they want.
Pretty much. Since movies make as much money for studios as they do, and since big-name stars are a large reason why people see particular movies, they’ll demand whatever salaries they can get away with. Ditto pro athletes. Are they as valuable to society as doctors, nurses, teachers, firefighters, cops or soldiers? No. But that’s how it is.
Making millions is hardly the norm for actors. But for those who do, it’s because the studio executives, or whoever’s paying them those millions, think they’re worth it—that they can do something that no one else could do as well, and bring in more money for the studio than they’re being paid.
And I suspect you may be underestimating the difficulty of the actor’s job. Movie acting isn’t a job I’d particularly want: long hours in makeup, long hours waiting around on the set, long hours performing the same scene over and over, having your every move and gesture intensely scrutinized.
What your saying of actors, true for some anyway, is true for sports stars, musicians, etc. It’s a reflection of what the market will pay in response to them being in a movie, on stage, etc.
I have this feeling all the time about sports stars, “They get paid millions for playing a game?” Then I remember it’s a a variant on any other entertainment medium.
Yup, a whole lot of actors make damned little money. I know a guy who’s a member of the Screen Actors Guild, been in some big budget films, and he’s got a fairly menial day job. Most actors (speaking in general terms) are more or less interchangeable, and thus they don’t command a big fee.
Not to mention the things they have to put up with when they leave work.
If movies were invented today, and nobody knew what to pay whom, it would still be the same.
A movie makes tens of millions of dollars on average. Who gets that? Naturally, the people who invested money in it get their money back, but aside from that.
The people who are most “obviously” responsible for it. To some people, movies aren’t written or filmed or edited or sound designed, all that happens is a director sits in a chair, says “action!”, and the actors make everything up.
Plus, as mentioned, they are a commodity. There are maybe 20 or 30 well known actors who will fill seats, while there could be hundreds of camera men or key grips of approximately equal talent.
If anybody is underrated in the process (and I wont count writers, for though they don’t get much respect they get paid pretty well), it’s editors and directors of photography.
You’ve never heard of the law of supply and demand?
Everybody’s job is equally important: acting is important, but if nobody’s running the camera, the movie ain’t getting made, no matter how good the actor is, which means the job of “camera operator” is just as important to the final product as the job of “actor.” Even the janitor’s job is important: if the trash doesn’t get taken away, eventually everything will grind to a halt.
But if somebody’s getting paid a shitload of money to do a job, it’s generally because there aren’t many people who can do that job. There are millions of people who are qualified for the job of janitor, so you don’t need to dangle a big salary to attract a qualified applicant. There are only thousands of people qualified to operate a movie camera, so the salary for that is somewhat higher. But if you’re looking for someone to star in your movie who has:
-top-notch acting skills;
-a particular face/body structure;
-and strong name recognition (i.e. simply having their name associated with the movie will attract paying moviegoers)
then you’ve narrowed the pool of qualified applicants down to less than a dozen or so. Those applicants are already established stars, so they’re not hurting for cash, and they know your soon-to-be-blockbuster will generate a lot of money, so they have no qualms about demanding multi-million dollar contracts. And the moviegoers approve, because they continue to happily shell out $10+ for a movie ticket.
Same goes for sports superstars, and the fans who voluntarily lay down $100+ a ticket to pay those superstar salaries.
Customers regularly whine about high prices, but they continue to voluntarily buy the product; it only ends when they say “this is too damn much, I’m staying home.”
Just to add a historical tidbit to this: Around the time that the Black Sox scandal started a trend of huge payments to athletes (in order to help take away the incentive to throw games for cash), the movie studios began to realize what a huge draw ‘big payments’ were to the general public (either due to a feeling of ‘if they’re paying this guy a lot, he must be worth something’ or ‘they’re paying him too much, what’s so good about him?’) and started becoming very public with any huge salaries they were paying out in order to draw people to see certain stars or films. It then grew much as it did in sports, mainly due to greed and egos. (“You’re paying him that much? I’m better, I deserve more.”)
See Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, “Economic Rent” and “Economic Surplus”.
Not quite. There are probably fewer really top editors than top actors, and they are more often more important to the movie. The difference is twofold. First, you can measure the impact of an actor on box office. Actors who put people in the seats get paid a lot, those who have lost this ability start seeing their fees shrink. Doubling the supply of actors who can open a film will not reduce their salaries at all.
Second, and most important, actors have agents, who negotiate every deal and who have the incentive of 10% and a rep to get a good one. I don’t know exactly how much editors and DPs make, by the way, but while not millions it isn’t chump change either, and I suspect it is more than the actors 10 down on the cast list.
I assume you’re talking about gross sales. Hollywood is notorious for “creative accounting” and even “successful” films hardly ever show a profit on paper. And there are many, many people involved in the process, however tangentially, who are trying to get their piece of the action.
Anyway as others have mentioned there are only a handful of actors who make millions. And they get it because, well, there are millions of people willing to pay to see those specific actors. Simple as that.
Another thing to consider is that, while a very small minority of actors may work regularly for really good money, a LOT of actors may make one good paycheck a year, if they are lucky - and to do so, most have to live in a place with a very elevated cost of living. A really great book to get an idea of how it works is Bruce Campbell’s “If Chins Could Kill” - now granted, Bruce is a “B” lister, but he has been pretty constantly employed in acting since the Evil Dead series, and despite that had some very lean years. I highly recommend the book also as an insight into how grueling acting can be as a career choice - waaaay harder then you might think.
If I was producing a product that was consumed by millions upon millions of people, I would hope that I was savvy enough to turn that into an impressive income.
What are you talking about? Most actors I’ve met get paid peanuts–even the professional ones! I guess maybe the Broadway ones…but that seems like a statistical outlier.
They system looks odd because it is.
One of the key reasons we have reality TV is that actors and singer and writers have outpriced themselves.
Actors and singers are a dime a dozen. Very few actors/actresses are box office “sures.” Even Brad Pitt has bombs.
(This is not unique for instance, CEOs have the same cost issue. You have CEOs that were in charge of companies and they have two or three on their records as been CEO when the company went “South” but they still get high paying jobs.
Once an actor hits the top it takes a lot of bombs to bring them down to their correct level.
This can explain the “how can he keep making pictures.”
Of course there are actors like Paul Rudd, who do well but don’t make a fortune. Of course Rudd seems to be in every other money for the last decade and a half 
Paul Rudd would be an example of this thinking
OK if we expect to make one million.
If we cast Rudd we have to pay him X dollars. Then the estimate how many more people will see the film, because he’s in it. If they think they can offset his salary with the few extra people he brings in, they do it.
You have to look at how casting works. Agents work on commission. Often agents can get some actors more money because of their portfolio.
For instance, if “Jane Famous” is with the “Acme Talent Agency” and you have a new client “John Almost” you control the talent. You may say to get Jane, for this film you have to use John in two of your films first.
In the case of Paul Rudd agains, he is with a stable of actors that work well together and they will often cast themselves together to up their sale. Sort of an OPEC for movies
The last thing to consider is ego. Actors often get a certain amount of money but it can be less than it seems. For instance Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the most powerful actors. He got a percentage of the gross and ALL his expense for him AND his staff paid for.
But usually an actor gets say a million dollars and pays his lawer, agent and staff himself.
Stars like Schwarzenegger do not.
On the flip side remember some roles are just desired. In Sean Astin’s autobiography he says that he was a working actor and need to make $250,000/year to maintain his lifestyle. (Not much really 'cause he lived in Southern California)
He says he was presented with a problem when offered the “Lord Of The Rings,” because they offered him $250,000 PERIOD. For as long as it took. So he basically went from making a steady $250,000/year as a “bit” actor to making $250,000 for the four years it took to make and promote the films.
So acting and movies is not a free market that why the prices are so out of whack and don’t stabalize.
Fact: Most actors live in studio apartments in North Hollywood, and are poor lovers.
You’re kidding, right?
Excuse me? Acting is hard. Acting well is amazingly hard.