Tylerd's question about why actors' residuals aren't tied to profit was headed in the right direction. What he and many others don't realize is that in the case of DVDs, that's exactly how residuals are calculated. 80% of the total profit (or "distributor's gross") from sales goes immediately to distribution costs, which means the studio keeps it. The 80% was established at a time when the distributor was a third party, which is no longer the case. Anyway, for the remainder of this math lesson, consider the remaining 20% as 100% of what we're talking about. The 20% is called "producer's gross."
From this "producer's gross" three residuals pools are allocated, one for the director, one for the writer or writers, and one for the cast. The pools are in a traditional ratio of 1-1-3. The actors' pool is three times the size of the directors' or writers' because it will be divided up amongst all onscreen actors and stunt players, and offscreen voice talent and singers. On a big feature, this will mean hundreds of people sharing the actors' pool, which totals 4.5%
of the 20%. This means that
as the movie fares, so will the talent fare. On a rare monster hit DVD release with a small cast, they may see hundreds, even thousands of dollars. On most they literally receive pennies. Both the studios and the union are actually concerned about the waste involved in cutting and handling these residual checks.
But DVD money apparently isn't the reason for the reports that a strike could be coming. The directors and writers made their deals and that 1-1-3 tradition is a strong one. The Screen Actors Guild has reportedly withdrawn its proposal for an increase in DVD payments. (The actors are said to be steamed however, to have learned that the studios have been paying contributions to the writers' and directors' health plans and pensions
in addition to the residual pools, while the payments to the actors' plans have been
deducted from their residual pool. Seems the AMPTP was a little disingenuous about that 1-1-3 for the last 28 years.)
The big sticking points now seem to have mostly to do with use of the actor's image in clips the studios want to license for download over the internet (getting in on YouTube before it does a Napster on them) and the growing practice in television of writing commercial testimonials into the script. In the world of television commercials, an actor who represents one product is contractually prohibited from advertising a rival product, and someone who talks onscreen about how Coke really quenches his thirst (if you watch "Medium" you know it's gone way beyond having the Coke can in the shot) will be ineligible for a Pepsi or 7Up commercial, so he'll want to be paid for hawking Coke. I believe SAG is proposing that the employer bargain separately for the commercial testimonial. Since acting in commercials pays better than guest starring in a TV show, the studios don't want to hear it.
Since both clip reuse and commercial testimonials have to do with onscreen exposure, they weren't even discussed in the directors' or writers' talks. There's no across-all-the-unions tradition to fall back on, so the studios really have to negotiate. Hence, the media reports that there may be a strike. The writers' strike reportedly cost the Los Angeles economy 2.5 billion, so any suggestion of another strike gets coverage.
Agent0028: the example didn't say, but it was implied that it's a
numeric average. You reach a numeric average by adding up all the salaries and dividing by the number of actors. That would mean that all the little actors must make very little money, to pull the average down from the Cruisesphere all the way to $8,000. Problem is, Screen Actors Guild has no way of knowing anything about film salaries above $300,000, unless they believe everything they read in the newspaper. Above that figure, producers have no obligation to contribute to health insurance or pension, so the reporting stops there. So my best guess is you can forget about Cruise and Pitt. They're in the calculation as having earned $300,000 per movie.
Sorry to have rambled so. The frightening part is, I could go on.
GO SCABS!!!!!
