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The thing is, people who are that new and naive can't demand much in the first place. People who are in a position to take a slice worth worrying about would pr

The thing is, people who are that new and naive can't demand much in the first place. People who are in a position to take a slice worth worrying about would presumably know better. I guess that's not completely true, going by the Scott Derrickson example, but it still seems strange to me.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
He had done a direct to video movie before Emily Rose, a Hellraiser thing with a budget of about $2 million. For that he likely made around $100k salary and if he had any net, it was worth nothing. But that project proved he could direct an acceptable film, which isn't as common a skill as you might imagine. So once he'd done that, he had the chance to move up to the next budget range, $20ish million, plus or minus. For that, as I mentioned above, he probably got in the neighborhood of $500k. Maybe a little more, but certainly less than $1 million. Then when that movie did extremely well, he went on to do The Day The Earth Stood Still, an $80 million dollar project. Whatever he got paid for that is highly variable, but it was likely a million or two. As he mentions in the podcast, TDTESS did 80 million domestic, total of 240 global. Which made it a success in terms of money, but since the domestic was so low it wasn't perceived as such in the industry. So he didn't move to the A list after that. He said he got offers for things like big franchise sequels, but his own dream projects weren't able to get the greenlight. If he'd taken the hired gun route on studio sequels, he said he'd probably make a couple million per. So what he did instead was go and make his own film, cheap. He made the current movie Sinister for $3 million. Again he's back in the few hundred thousand range at most for salary. But this time, since it was his movie and he made it cheap, he's got real gross participation. As he says in the podcast, after the movie hits a certain breakeven point (which it likely is very close to doing if it hasn't already), the money starts rolling in for him and he'll be "rich". From the podcast, it seems likely his deal on this project will let him get what would be called FU Money here. It's not a terrible system, really. Directors aren't completely screwed, they do ok for themselves. The real secret is to own the property yourself.

waterlesscloud 14y ago

He had done a direct to video movie before Emily Rose, a Hellraiser thing with a budget of about $2 million. For that he likely made around $100k salary and if he had any net, it was worth nothing. But that project proved he could direct an acceptable film, which isn't as common a skill as you might imagine. So once he'd done that, he had the chance to move up to the next budget range, $20ish million, plus or minus. For that, as I mentioned above, he probably got in the neighborhood of $500k. Maybe a little more, but certainly less than $1 million. Then when that movie did extremely well, he went on to do The Day The Earth Stood Still, an $80 million dollar project. Whatever he got paid for that is highly variable, but it was likely a million or two. As he mentions in the podcast, TDTESS did 80 million domestic, total of 240 global. Which made it a success in terms of money, but since the domestic was so low it wasn't perceived as such in the industry. So he didn't move to the A list after that. He said he got offers for things like big franchise sequels, but his own dream projects weren't able to get the greenlight. If he'd taken the hired gun route on studio sequels, he said he'd probably make a couple million per. So what he did instead was go and make his own film, cheap. He made the current movie Sinister for $3 million. Again he's back in the few hundred thousand range at most for salary. But this time, since it was his movie and he made it cheap, he's got real gross participation. As he says in the podcast, after the movie hits a certain breakeven point (which it likely is very close to doing if it hasn't already), the money starts rolling in for him and he'll be "rich". From the podcast, it seems likely his deal on this project will let him get what would be called FU Money here. It's not a terrible system, really. Directors aren't completely screwed, they do ok for themselves. The real secret is to own the property yourself.