I Miss Him!

A friend of mine emailed me this morning to tell me that she was watching something on Masterpiece when they showed a preview for The Child in Time with Benedict! She was very excited to give me the news, and said she would record it for me if I miss it so we could watch it together. There was no air date given, but I'm thinking it must be soon if they're already showing previews.

I had to tell her the truth that I've already seen it.

As far as payment for TCW every actor and every movie is different so it is hard to say exactly what financial arrangements were made.  For the research I did it seems like a pretty standard payment for actors (even big stars) is a third when they sign, a third part of the way through and a final third when the movie wraps.  But, it is also possible that some don’t get fully paid their money until after the promotion work is done (so some money is held back in other words).  

It really depends on the deal that was arranged before hand when the actor signed on to do the role.  

And of course there are other complications such as if the actor signed on to forgo some of their ”up front” money in lieu of some type of profit sharing scheme (like taking gross points) after the movie was released.  In the case of TCW I wouldn’t think this would be likely because it wasn’t the kind of movie that would be a huge profit maker movie - being more of an “art house” production that was a prestige film.

Some stars don’t take all of their money for a movie any way.  They have companies that are technically entities that “employ” them (even though they own said company and the $$$$ for that role are paid to the company.  Then the company “pays” the actor (usually a smaller amount than what they are being compensated for acting in the film) and the rest is held by the company.  That way the actor pays less income tax on the amount they are paid from the company and the company itself pays a lower “corporate rate” of tax on the remaining amount.  The rest of the money held by the company can be paid later to the actor (and again it lessens the amount of tax taken out of it) and spreads out the larger amount over a longer period of time.  

:-))