The fourth installments of Summit Entertainment’s Twilight saga and Sony’s Spider-Man franchise have negotiated vastly different salaries for their principal players.
The newly-announced webslinger, Andrew Garfield, is banking just 0,000 for the first film in the rebooted series, according to Deadline. The Marc Webb-directed restart is intended to scale the series back from Spider-Man 3’s massive 0+ million price tag to a mere million budget for the 3D 2012 release, starting with the lead it seems.
Garfield’s contract includes a deal for the first film with options for two additional Spider-Man movies, when he’ll see his pay increase to million and million for the second and third respectively. Of course, a continuing trilogy will depend on the success of the original, which so far has hired a proven screenwriter, a capable director, and a talented actor.
But Sony, which has already made .5 billion from the franchise in theaters alone, prepared this perfectly by lining up a long list of twenty-somethings to vie for the Spidey suit and using that competition as leverage. BlueSkyDisney reported Josh Hutcherson was in the mix until his management played last minute hardball and the role went to Garfield.
Meanwhile, Summit faced a much different situation with the fourth Twilight movie. By splitting Breaking Dawn into two parts to milk the cash cow a bit longer, the studio had to re-negotiate its contracts with the cast members. This included significant raises for Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, who each made .5 million for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
How much more? NY Magazine’s Vulture is reporting Stewart, Pattinson, and Lautner will make million base salary against 7.5% of the theatrical gross, or .5 million a movie plus their cut. That means once the revenue for parts four and five is split among the investors, exhibitors, and the studio, the trio of rising stars will easily take million each. That is, if the two Dawn movies are as successful as the one New Moon — clearly a conservative estimate. I guess it pays to be irreplaceable.
Judging from the huge returns this weekend, I’d imagine the Twilight saga isn’t suddenly going to drop off when it returns November 2011 with Oscar-winning director Bill Condon. Summit has already made about .4 billion off the first two modestly-budgeted Twilight films and the opening weekend of the third. That sort of puts Ashley Greene and Kellan Lutz’s hold-out for a .25 million deal into perspective.
What if you woke up one morning well into your teenage years, picked up a carton of milk to pour yourself a drink and saw your own photo printed there, beneath the words MISSING PERSON. Replace the milk carton — so 1990s — with a website and you’ve got the basic premise of “Abduction,” which stars “Twilight” lead Taylor Lautner as the grown-up missing person. Today brings the news that “Spider-Man 2″ star Alfred Molina has joined the cast, as a CIA agent working the case. For more details, check out the full report on Deadline.