We think A-List movie stars haul in the big bucks with every role. Turns out, it’s not always the case. In this episode, Movie Mike talks about actors who actually took a significantly smaller salary for some very iconic roles. Mike also reviews “Black Bear” starring Aubrey Plaza. He and his fiancé Kelsey also talk about the big Warner Brother’s movie announcement that they are set to release their entire 2021 movie lineup all at once on HBO Max and in theaters.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You ever watch a movie with a big, old a
list actor and you think, man, they had to make
such a big paycheck for that movie, And yeah, that's
usually the case. They used to make a lot of money.
But sometimes, sometimes, in very rare instances, they take a
lower amount of money for a particular movie and have
their own explanation why. Sometimes they lead onto oscar, sometimes
(00:23):
they did it as a favor, whatever the case, that's
what we're talking about today. This episode is all about
a list actors who surprisingly took a small amount for
iconic movie roles. I'll also give a movie review for
a brand new movie called Black Bear, which is available
to stream now on demand, and also some major movie
news with Warner Brothers coming in hard with HBO Max
(00:46):
and announcing that all their movies will go onto streaming.
We'll get into those movies and our thoughts on that.
Will have my fiance Kelsey on for that segment without
any further ado, let's get started. In a world where
everyone and their mother has a cast, one man stands
to infiltrate the ears of listeners like never before in
a movie podcast. A man with so much movie knowledge,
(01:10):
he's basically like a walking AUDIMTV, which classes from the
Nashville Podcast Networking Movie Movie Podcast. All right, so just
to paint the picture of why I came up with
the idea for this episode and the research I did
on this is. I am currently sitting in a bedroom
in Los Angeles, California. If you don't know, the main
(01:30):
show I work for is called The Bobby Bones Show,
where I am a writer and the producer over there,
and occasionally I have to travel for the job. This
year has been a lot different because everything got shut down.
We weren't traveling for a very long time. But right
now we're having to do a couple of weeks out
here in Los Angeles, which as a kid, Los Angeles
always seemed like a very far distant place that I
(01:53):
would never get a chance to go. And it wasn't
until I started working in radio and had this job
and to do some traveling that I came to Los Angeles.
I remember the first time I came to California just
how mind point it was for me to be a
trailer park kid who never left walks the Hatchie Texas
let alone, the state let alone, come to the West coast,
(02:14):
and it's still not lost to me how cool it
is to come out to Los Angeles, and me being
such a big movie fan, it's cool to see the
studios and walking around those places. I know everything's kind
of shut down now, but just driving through saying the
Hollywood sign like it's an amazing thing. And while I've
been here this week, I still go out on my runs,
which is pretty much my main form of exercise, but
(02:37):
also how I get the creative juices going. I come
up with a lot of ideas for the main show
and for this podcast while I'm out on a run
and I'm here reading in Los Angeles and I see
all these fancy houses up on the hill, and I
get to thinking, like, man, I bet some famous people
live in those houses, and just thinking about how expensive
it is to own a place out here, and just
(03:00):
how much a movie star actually makes, which got to
mean the thinking, you know what they end up making
per movie. And then I kind of got a little
bit more of like, you know what, I think, sometimes
the paycheck doesn't mean a whole lot to them anymore.
And I've seen this a lot more where actors come
back later in their careers and they're just trying to
do something that's meaningful to them, Like they've done the
(03:20):
big blockbuster movies, but they want to do something that's
a little more you know, refined and something that defines
them as an actor in the legacy they want to
leave on that. They kind of turned down big money
to do smaller projects to have that chance of getting
an oscar basically, And then you also kind of see
early on in actor's careers, they basically take anything to
kind of build up their resume. So you can see,
like a big actor who goes on to have a
(03:42):
very you know, fruitful career in the early days, they
took on a very small paycheck. So what I kind
of went through in research where instances where this happened,
where they ended up having these iconic roles, but the
paychecks don't really amount to what you think they would
have now a lot of time. In a lot of
these cases, it's still a lot of money. Like, don't
(04:02):
get me wrong, it's a big amount to shake a
stick at that we would be like I would take
that in an instance to do essentially a few months
of work, not downplaying how much effort and how hard
it is to be an actor in the craft they have,
but just saying like it's a substantial amount. So I
(04:24):
want to start first with Matthew McConaughey. So going back
first to thirteen. So Matthew McConaughey, he basically had his
run in like the early two thousands where he was
doing a lot of just kind of cheesy rom com
some action adventure movies in there. He was a big
movie star. He would make a lot of money per movie,
around fifteen million, twenty million on the high end. He's
(04:46):
in that a list kind of status there. But around
ten he started taking on smaller rules to kind of
it was almost a reinvention him of self, Like he
did all those movies and he was kind of known
as that guy, but he wanted to do something the
year and just more refined and kind of show like, hey,
I'm like a really great actor. I have the ability
to do that. And where this all comes into play
(05:08):
is he actually turned down a role on Magnum p
I where he was gonna be making fifteen million dollars,
like straight up to do it. That's how much they
would have paid him. But instead he wanted to do
Dallas Buyers Club, where he only earned under two hundred
thousand dollars in exchange for some back end points. So
(05:28):
what that essentially means is he takes that kind of
smaller paycheck up front, but he also gets money on
the back end, whether through like royalties, ticket sales. Basically,
he doesn't make a whole lot of money up front,
but if the movie ends up being a success and
a hit, he'll make it on the back end, which
in this case, that's what happened. The movie only had
(05:49):
a five million dollar budget, like I did this super
low budget where there was basically like one person doing
like the makeup and the costumes were just all just
done on a shoestring budget for this type of movie.
That went on to make sixty million dollars. So he
ended up making his money on the back end. And
not only that, but he landed his first ever Academy
(06:11):
Award for Best Actor. So now, Matthew McConaughey, it's worth
about ninety five million dollars. So to break that down
in what that would mean for you and I listening
how much he's making, he makes about fifty two cents
per second, about thirty one dollars per minute, eighteen hundred
(06:31):
dollars every hour and about forty five thousand dollars per day,
so he's doing pretty well. And I thought it was
cool of him to take less on this movie because
he believed in the project and he believed that it
would go on to be something that they're gonna end
up winning Officers for which not only did he, but
also Jared Letto did for Best Supporting Actor. And I
(06:52):
think since then we kind of take Matthew McConaughey a
little bit more seriously. He's not just the googby alright, alright, alright, guy,
He's kind of a legit dramatic actor now, whether it
be in movies or in TV. So I think this
was good on him. You know, tank the less money upfront,
make it on the back end. Either way, you get
to go home with an oscar. Now, all right, now
(07:13):
let's talk about Robert Downey Jr. And some of the Avengers.
So starting with Robert Downey Jr. The first Iron Man movie,
which basically kicked off the entire Marvel franchise and made
it what it is today, greatly due to how great
he was in the movie. And he only had a
five hundred thousand dollars salary for that first movie, and
let's just say since then he has gotten paid but
(07:36):
five thousand dollars to be the leading man in that
type of movie. At the time was a very small scale,
Like I'm talking a legit a list actor at the
top of their game will probably bring in on the
higher end twenty million dollars for a traditional theatrical release.
It's a little bit different now in the world of streaming,
(07:57):
like Netflix is paying way more in that right now,
they're getting up in too, like the forty sixty million
dollar range. But for an actor just with a straight
up theatrical at least, it's usually about fifteen twenty million
on the higher end, So five hundred thousand dollars it's
significantly less, but that's what it was at the time.
He was kind of having a comeback at this time.
(08:19):
But also like Matthew McConaughey, being that he took the
small upfront, he got the money in the back end
and ended up making two point five million dollars with
the success of the movie, ended up making fifty million
dollars for the first Avenger film, and then at the
very end of it, by the time we got to
End Game, he was making seventy five million dollars per
(08:39):
Marvel movie, so he's worth now about three d and
ninety six to roughly four hundred and thirty five million dollars.
So again I've kind of learned this in my life.
Whenever you first started something in approving yourself, you're gonna
have to take a little bit less money, and then
once you prove your worth, that's kind of when you
get paid. And then kind of going back to if
(09:02):
I will quote one of my favorite superhero movies, The
Dark Night, when Joker says, if you're good at something,
never do it for free. Words of wisdom from the
Joker here. Also staying in the kind of Avengers world
is Chris Evans was only paid a million dollars for
the first Captain America film, and that was probably my
(09:22):
least favorite one, and I didn't know that they would
kind of be successful after that one. I thought that
one was a little bit slow. I didn't think the
villain was all that great, and he was in that
movie and we never saw him again, and I thought
they could have brought it back in some capacity. I
think that's also what a lot of the Marvel movies
were kind of lacking in the beginning, they didn't have
great villains, but needless to say, he really went on
(09:43):
to carry the Marvel movies. Now they were really heavy
on having iron Man being everything, whether it be the
Avengers movies or just having cameos and other Marvel movies,
because he carried the movie so much of putting his
name on it. People loved Robert Downey Jr. Is iron Man,
but I think underneath that, Chris Evans really kind of
(10:03):
created this foundation of the movies to where he was
right up there with iron Man as far as carrying
being able to carry a movie. So I thought he
should have been paid a lot more throughout, but he
ended up only making about fifteen million dollars per movies,
so they were just giving Robert Downey Jr. All the
money here. But even on the lower end, Chris Himsworth,
who played Store, he only took on a hundred and
(10:24):
fifty thousand dollars to play Thor in the first one.
But like Chris Evans, by the time he got to
the later movies, he made fifteen million dollars for Stora Ragnarok.
So I think in their cases it was just a
matter of them being able to show their worth and
showing that they could carry these movies so they got
their paycheck later. In Jonah Hill's case, when it came
to the Wolf of Wall Street, he accepted sixty thousand
(10:47):
dollars and it was mainly because he wanted to work
with Martin Scorsese, who was a legendary director, and for
an actor to be able to say that they worked
with one of their heroes probably means a lot to him.
Think that really is what kind of sealed the deal
for him when he was just offered this role in
the ability to work with Martin Scorsese, he was like,
(11:08):
I'll basically do whatever, Like right when the deal was
offered to him, he took it and signed it and
was like, I just don't want them to take this
away from me, Like I want to be able to
work with Martin Scorsese. And when you just think of
the history of movies that he has, that they're all
legendary in their own way, and if you're in any
of his movies, you're basically going to leave behind that
(11:29):
same legacy. You're gonna be a part of his collection
of films. So I could see with an actor like him,
which also he was mainly a communicy actor at the time.
He'd done you know, money Wall, but he'd never really
been in a drama like this before, which he just
has some commenty in it too, but it's just seeing
Jonah Hill in a way you really haven't expected to
see him before. He's not the guy from super Band
(11:49):
at this when he's not playing Seth. So that's what
he did. He took the sixty thou dollars, that's all
he made from this movie, but then went on to
be nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Award,
and probably he was like biggest moment of his career
to date. Like, aside from him being able to do that,
he got to work with Martin Scorsese and since you know,
(12:10):
done a little bit of work and directing, he directed
a movie called Mid Nineties which came out a couple
of years ago. And I bet a lot of being
able to work with Martin Scorsese and a director of
that caliber really kind of gave him some edge and
gave him some knowledge that he would not have acquired
any other way. Again, I can kind of relate this
back to me. I started out as an unpaid intern
(12:30):
I worked for free for about a year and a half,
and a lot of people would come to me and
be like, dude, why are you doing this for free?
Like you're really good at this, you should be getting
paid by now. And I was like, you know what,
I know that eventually this will turn into something, and
I know that I am learning things that are invaluable.
And maybe people think I'm crazy right now, but just
(12:51):
know that this will pay off later. And it ended up,
you know, working out for me like it did for
Jonah Hill. You just can't really put a price on experience.
It's like that being able to work with somebody so
great and being able just to kind of experience that firsthand.
That's something in an internship that you know what it's
all about. Really, So I wouldn't go back and never
(13:12):
be I look back and I'm fine that I never
made a dime early on when I was doing this thing.
Ten years later, I'm still here doing my own podcast,
which is what I set out to do from the
very beginning. So hey, full circle moment. Here, we'll roll
through some more of these that I found. Um, if
you're watching Christmas movies right now or you're a big
fan of the movie Home Alone, a very small kind
(13:34):
of cameo at the very end is John Candy. It's
really an iconic cameo, Like you don't really realize how
big of a part of that movie is. And a
lot of that scene he just did on improv and
they were basically just like, hey, just show up to
set one day, knock out these scenes and you'll be
in the movie. And he ended up only making four
hundred and fourteen dollars for that movie. So at the
(13:57):
very end, if you don't remember, at the movie, he's
the one who offers Evan's mom a ride to go
and get to Kevin because she can't get a flight
out anywhere, and he has the whole polka band and
the whole idea like that whole like kind of back
and forth between her and him was a lot of
just his improv. So for fourteen dollars, and sadly, John
Candy died just three years after that movie came out,
(14:19):
but phenomenal actor. If you're not familiar with all of
his movies from anything of Splash Baseball's Uncle Buck, highly
recommend just sitting down over the holiday break and watching
a good old John Candy movie Myselfsky Polka, King of
the Midwest, the Kenosha Kickers. No, that's okay. I thought
(14:40):
you might have recognized anyways. Um, I had a few
hits a few years ago. That's why, you know, just Polca, PoCA,
Polka Folka. And then we got Jennifer Lopez who was
not paid a single dollar for her role in Hustlers,
which is like super surprising to me because you think
Jennifer Lopez wouldn't even show up to a place unless
(15:01):
she had, like I don't know, ten fifty million dollars guaranteed.
But she believed in this movie so much she was like,
I don't want to take a salary. I found an
interview she did in g Q and she basically said,
I did it for free, I produced it, I bank
on myself. She said, like Jenny from the Block, I
do what I want, I do what I love. So
that's pretty amazing. And that was I felt a very
(15:22):
big snub for her. She, along with that movie should
have been nominated when it came out for the Oscars.
But it's cool to see a celebrity and an actress
of her status just to be that passionate about a
project and just want to get it made. Also, Hillary
Swink in the movie Boys Don't Cry. She was paid
just three thousand dollars for that role. And this movie
(15:44):
was very early on in her career. She had made
a whole lot of money doing any role. And what
she found out is that from a movie job, you
have to make five thousand dollars in order to qualify
for health insurance. And while making a movie, she had
to get a prescription. Field went to this pharmacy and
they told her, all right, this is gonna be a
(16:05):
hundred and sixty dollars and she's like, is that with
my insurance? And they were like, yep. Turns out she
had an Academy award, didn't have health insurance. Boom. George
Clooney one of the highest paid salons right now. But
in order to write, direct, and star in the movie
good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney only received a
(16:26):
three dollar salary. That's right, one two three dollars. That's it.
I literally have that amount in my wallet. I could
hire George Clooney now if I wanted for what he
made making this movie. So this was basically just a
passion project for George Clooney. We've kind of seen a
theme here. People just really believe in a movie they
will basically make it for nothing. This one paid off
(16:48):
because it was nominated for not one, not two, not three,
not even four, not even five, but six Academy Awards
back in two thousand and six. A passion project that
actually paid off. Now. I have friends who do passing
projects sometimes, whether it be some kind of hip hop
album they're making their bedroom, and I gotta say, I
don't think those have paid off quite like this one.
(17:09):
So be passionate but also has some talent. Jennifer Lawrence
who made about five hundred thousand dollars for her breakout
role as catanists Everdeen in The Hunger Game and then
went on to make thousands and millions in the rest
of that franchise, and now it just makes pretty much
that for every single movie. But when it came to
her first critically acclaimed role in Winter's Bone, she only
(17:30):
made three thousand dollars per week. That was it got
nominated for Oscar, but she only made three hundred thousand
dollars a week, and even later in her career for
like movies like American Hustle, she said, you know, she
still felt like there was a gender pay gap, like
her and Amy Adams were paid a lot less than
her male co stars. She said, like early on in
her career, she you know, didn't really know how to negotiate.
(17:52):
She would just kind of give up early. I mean,
that's also kind of along the lines of gal Gadot
and Wonder Woman. For the very first one, she only
made three hundred thousand dollars and that movie ended up
making eight hundred and twenty one million worldwide. Like that,
math makes no sense to me. Meanwhile, you got Superman
making tons of money and his movies are terrible. A
(18:14):
few more of these a little surprising. Brad Pitt was
only paid six thousand dollars for his role in Filma
and Louise. Bill Murray earned about nine thousand dollars for
his work on Rushmore ended up being an indie classic,
though Dustin Hoffman only made about seventeen thousand for his
breakout role in The Graduate. Julia Roberts made about fifty
thousand dollars to start in the very first movie Mystic Pizza,
(18:37):
and then only made three hundred thousand dollars for one
of her most iconic roles of all time pretty woman
like That's it. John Travolta only made a hundred and
fifty thousand dollars for his role in Pulp Fiction, which
I just saw him do a commercial the other day
where he's basically reenacting that dance scene, so he's made
up his money there. And then, finally, from one of
my favorite movies, the original Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis. It
(19:00):
was a very new actress at the time, basically put
her on the map. She only made eight thousand dollars,
so they shot that entire movie and only four weeks.
She was paid two thousand dollars per week. And also
not only that, she bought her own costume for the movie,
actually got it from a J. C. Penny's. Think about that.
Lorie Strode's iconic look was the J. C. Penny's original.
(19:21):
So if you ever wondered how much actors made for
some of your favorite movies, there you go. All right,
let's get into a movie review now. I want to
talk about the movie Black Bear, which just came out
last Friday, and I gotta say this was an unexpected
hit for me. I love Aubrey Plaza, so I was
(19:43):
gonna watch this movie no matter what. But upon turning
this movie on and seeing what it ended up being about,
I was blown away. And I'm gonna say this early,
this could possibly be one of my favorite movies of
Before I get into that full review, here's just a
little bit of the movie black bear line since the
(20:05):
sudden I got here, this is what I want to
be normal people again. So going into this movie, I
didn't know a whole lot what it was going to
be about. I saw a quick snip, but the trailer
(20:27):
mainly saw it from Aubrey Plaza promoting the movie on
her Instagram page, I just watched Happiest Season, so I
was like, all right, I'm down to see her in
a dramatic role now, which I mainly know her as
a comedic actress. I know her from Parks and Wreck
and a bunch of stuff she did early in her
career that was, you know, more towards just straight up
comedy stuff. And then seeing her in this movie being
(20:49):
so intense and kind of like, oh man, like it's
like the range on Albredy Plaza in this movie. It's
pretty phenomenal. It's seeing her in a way I've never
seen her before. And I don't want to completely ruin
what the movie is about, because for me, I watched
it just on a whim. I knew it was gonna
be good when it was something brand new that you
could stream on at home. And the other great thing
(21:11):
about this that I'll mention right now, it only costs
six dollars to rent. Yeah, that's a big thing. Like
all the new movies coming out at home or twenty bucks,
this one will only cost you seven bucks wherever you
can stream video on the Man movie. So that was
a big selling point for me from the very beginning.
And I won't really reveal what happens throughout the movie,
but it just almost felt like two movies into one.
(21:34):
And what the movie is essentially about, which you kind
of pick up from the trailer, which is about as
much of a spoiler as I ever give out. I
only talk about something that shown in the trailer. It's
about this woman who goes to stay at a bed
and breakfast with this other couple and there's just some
crazy tension between the two because they feel like the
husband has feelings for this person coming to stay with them.
(21:55):
But that when you but then what you find out
later while watching this movie, it turns into being a
movie about making a movie and the director trying to
get a really dramatic performance out of Aubrey Plaza and
doing things that kind of manipulator in the process, and
it gets very intense. So this movie is a little
bit meta in the sense that it's like a movie
within a movie about filmmaking. But maybe just because I
(22:18):
love movies so much and I love the process behind it,
it was kind of cool to see that different perspective,
like something pulled kind of behind the curtain a little bit.
And what it did a really good job of When
it did make the flip into like a chapter two,
it's kind of broken into two chapters, it's still kept
this kind of intensity in this kind of just suspense
(22:38):
that was going while you're the one experiencing it with
the characters in the movie. So I just thought that
was a really interesting thing. And even if it's kind
of a meta kind of concept, I think they did
it pretty well. And there was just something about this
movie just from the dialogue that just had me like
pulled in. It wasn't anything crazy, no crazy special effects
(22:59):
or no crazy horror blood things like that. It was
just like intense dialogue and intense conversations, and you just
really see how great of an actress that Aubrey Plase
is to see that range in her to go from
like almost being two characters in this movie. In a sense,
it's really kind of captivating and a really unique way
to do something that I had, Like, I didn't even
(23:21):
know I needed this movie in my life until I
was watching it. And there's some things in this movie
that I haven't seen in movies in a long time.
And it's a fair warning it is rated R. And
there's there's man butt in this movie. I haven't seen
man butt in a movie in quite a while. I
think the total butt count in this movie is maybe two,
maybe three possibly butts in this entire movie, which is
(23:43):
something you don't see all the time anymore. And also
smoking don't say that a whole lot of movies anymore.
But I think they kind of did it as a
tactic to kind of create Aubrey Plaza's character when you're
seeing her as the actress acting in this movie. So
that was kind of an interesting point too. So from
the start of this movie, I kind of got misery vibe.
I thought it was going to have that kind of
a twist, but what I ended up getting was two
(24:04):
movies in one, and Aubrey Plaza is really perfect in
both of them. So I think if you're looking for
something a little bit different as far as like a
drama with a little bit of not even common just
a little like dark comedy in there, I really think
you'll enjoy this one. It has a unique perspective, It
felt fresh and just something that I didn't know I needed,
(24:26):
like I said earlier, and kind of a sleeper pick
in there to be one of my favorites. There were
just something that just captivated me in a way that
I haven't been before. There was parts of the movie
where I like stood up and put my hands on
my head, like literally got out of my seat to
react to what I was seeing on screen. Has a
really cool feel, looks amazing, It's done, I would say
pretty close to perfect and what I was looking for.
(24:48):
Would easily give it four out of five bears. And honestly,
I hope to see Aubrey Plaza do some more dramatic
girls like this. She's amazing at it. All right, let's
get into some movie news now, and I'm joined by
my co hot in fiance Kelsey, who is back home
in Nashville. How are you, Kelsey? I'm good? How are
you good? It is the first time we've ever done
movie news with us in different states, even though we
(25:10):
were long distance for two years. This is kind of
like become my favorite part of the podcast because we
get to just talk about movie news, go back and forth,
and I think listeners like this. If you are listening
now and do enjoy this segment with Kelsey, give us
a tweet, send us an Instagram message or something. How
do you feel about this segment? I like it. It's fun.
I feel like people get to hear are like natural banter. Well,
(25:31):
there we go. Let's get into the biggest movie headline
of the week, and it's gonna pretty much change the
way we watch movies for the entire year. And Warner
Brothers coming in strong announcing that all of their movies
next year are coming to theaters and directly onto HBO Max.
(25:52):
And we've been talking about this for a minute now
because we're like, should we get HBO Max? Should we
try just to hang on to the trial, But now
the pretty much sets that we're gonna have to get
it and pay for it because we want to watch
all these movies. And I think it's pretty cool what
they're doing here. Are you excited about it? I am,
which I think paying for that service goes back to
(26:12):
our discussion last week about whether or not we will
pay for movies. So I'm just just getting this on
the record. We can pay for HBO Max. Is that
a yet? Yes, we can pay for HBO Max because
the great, the great thing that they're doing is you
just pay the subscription for HBO Max and you get
these movies. The only real catch here is that they
will only be available for thirty days, so they come
out in theaters, they come out on their streaming service,
(26:34):
and you can have like thirty days to watch them.
But they're not doing the whole Disney Plus thing that
charge thirty dollars, which ended up pretty much failing, which
we did watch that Muan movie Bade this thirty bucks.
So this is really them kind of saying like, hey,
we're here with HBO Max and we're gonna like change everything.
I think movie theaters are pretty upset. I read a
whole article with an interview with the CEO of Warner
(26:57):
and he's like Yeah, they're pretty much like not happy
about this, but we told them that, you know, this
is better than giving you nothing. This is kind of
working towards being able to enjoy new content again, because
I mean, they just can't keep the laying movies on
and on and on without us seeing anything. This is
kind of that in between. Do you think that movie
theaters will kind of die out because it is a deal?
(27:20):
What do you think? I don't think they'll die out.
I still think there's an experience there in going I
think like going to see a movie in theaters is
more of like that would be more of like a
date night, like something you can do. I feel like
after this year, nobody's really gonna want to be home anymore.
Like I feel like once we're let out of our houses,
we're all just gonna never want to be home. So
I think that there's still some value in going to
(27:42):
the movie theater and it's an experience, um just kind
of those big ticket movies. But I'm also I'm looking
at your tweet now about this, and you said, looks
like I'm not leaving my couch for a while. I
just wanted to want to know we haven't left the
couch like, you're just you haven't. We have a lot
of couch this year. Like, I think we are probably
gonna need a new couch, like sooner than anticipated because
(28:02):
we've just sat on the couch for this entire year. Yeah,
the button prints getting pretty bad right now. It's not
like you aren't going to leave the couch, you just
you haven't yet going to continue. I was anticipating at
some point in to get out of the house and
go to a movie. But I think what this is
gonna do. It's gonna give people the option. Who if
you're not comfortable going into a movie theater. But even
(28:23):
before the pandemic started, people were saying, Hey, we want
to be able to watch these movies at home too.
We like home theater systems and TVs and surround sound
has all gotten so much better. At home, you have
that ability to still enjoy a movie to that kind
of quality and that comfort of just you know, walking
to your living room. So I think this is something
people have been wanting. Is just kind of given them
a reason to do it this year while kind of
(28:44):
still pissing off a movie theater. So yeah, I honestly
don't know now if I would go back to a
movie theater. Again, this is only Warner Brothers, but I
could see other places following suit too. Yeah, we may
need to order that new couch. Do we also to
get a sound of bar? We do need a sound.
I can get a tweet the other day of somebody asking,
(29:05):
like the setup, I have to watch movies and the
only thing I'm really particular about is the picture, Like
I don't I haven't invested in getting anything for the
sound yet, which I think you know, we're just saying
that's our next step. But um, at the start of
this whole thing, it was just kind of my idea
to like, Okay, I'm gonna need a new TV because
we're gonna be watching a lot of things at home. Now.
(29:25):
We just have a TV that barely fits on our
TV stand. That's true. The first time I plugged that
thing in, I literally laughed out loud because it was
so massive in there and it barely fit on the
on the little TV stands. So we may need to
upgrade that too. So I just I just hear dollar
signs out of this conversation. But among the movies coming out,
I mean everything from Mortal Kombat to Space Jam, which
(29:46):
I've been looking forward to, to the Suicide Squad Matrix,
four Dune. There's just so many movies that they're putting out,
and along the same lines what I was talking about
this quality is they're also being released in four K.
And then the other thing we about is they are
going to get rid of their seventh day trial, which
we were saying, yeah, they're probably not going to keep
that around for much longer. So I think our plane
(30:07):
has kind of gone there. Yeah, I mean there was
no that's just a bad business plan. Anyone can see that.
And I don't have a business degree, but like you're
gonna offer a seven day free trial and put out
a huge movie, Everyone's just going to sign up, and
there are those people that would forget to cancel, but
I think the majority would try to cancel, So probably
smart that they're doing that. They got to make their
(30:27):
money back somewhere, because I mean, these movies cost so
much money. But I think they'll get a lot of
subscribers out of this. I'm curious to see how this
plays out, and right now they're only saying that this
will only be but I think they're just saying that
not to make any more movie heaters mad because pretty
much the head of AMC like wants to murder them
right now. I mean I still enjoy it. Like I said,
it's like an experience going into the movies. I mean,
(30:49):
I think there's something to be said. You get kind
of dressed up and you leave the house and they're
making a movie. Theater is a lot more comfortable, Like
AMC in particular have some great leather recliners though, So
I still would go the movies, not anytime soon, but
eventually I don't want them to completely die out. Are
you saying we should get leather recliners? Some lazy boys
his and hers? The lazy boys walked myself into that one.
(31:14):
Also in movie news, speaking of paying for movies, Mulan
is now available for free on Disney Plus. Now. We
paid the thirty bucks and we were like, hey, don't
pay it, like it's not worth it. Would you say, now,
if people have Disney Plus to watch, move on? Sure?
I mean I I didn't really enjoy that movie. It
was it didn't feel like it did. No. If you're
(31:36):
looking for something to watch, like I know kids are
probably getting out of school now, sure watch. It wasn't
my favorite thing. I'm probably never going to rewatch it. Yeah,
it just felt like a Disney war movie. It didn't
have the charm is the original one, like the songs
that weren't in there, Mooshoe wasn't in there. I felt
it lacked a little bit. It looked amazing like they
(31:57):
filmed that to be seen in a big movie screen.
But aside from that, they took a lot away from
the story and it didn't really feel like the same movie.
So but also, mulan Is just isn't one of my
favorite Disney movies. Also in movie news, the Oscars said
that they will be live and in person next year.
Usually goes down in February and now won't happen until April,
(32:23):
but it won't be a virtual thing. They'll be back
with actors and actresses in the actual awards ceremony, which
for me, the Oscars are kind of like my super Bowl,
which I mean, I'll watch the Super Bowl as well,
but I get so invested in the Oscars and watching
all the Oscar movies and making my picks and you know,
(32:44):
when those are on. It's an event for me that
I really look forward to every year. And I think
they can do it in a safe way, especially by April,
and I was kind of thinking of when they did,
like the c m as that kind of had a
weird field to where it felt like they were just
a conference room kind of standing around and like chairs
and tables, but they were all there, like all the
(33:05):
people nominated and performing were there. So the weird thing
about oscars is there's I mean there's usually performances too,
but it's just kind of people hanging out in the room.
So I guess that's the oppost they're going to have,
just not having a full on audience there. But do
you like the oscars? Do you like watching them? I do?
I feel like I don't typically know a lot of
(33:25):
the movies. The only beer that I had seen a
lot of the movies with the year that that movie
pass thing was a big deal and which I mean
that went under quickly. What did I pay? I paid
like ten dollars a month and I could see like
a movie a day, which was great. I saw so
many movies I never would have seen because I was like,
I don't really have to pay for this um But yeah,
(33:47):
I don't. I don't always know all of the Oscar
movies I will watch them, though I enjoy them. I'm
kind of wondering what's going to be nominated next year.
Not that much has come out Sonic the Hedgehog, like
The Hedgehog for Best Picture. Yeah, yeah, I remember when
Movie Pass came out, everybody tagged being in there, like
you gotta get this, you gotta go, you know, get
this movie Pass that you can see all these movies,
(34:08):
and I never got it. I knew it was going
to fail from the very start. I'm like, there's no
way that they're going to be able to keep up
with that business plan like of allowing you to watch
however many movies you wanted, and which I think that's
how it was at the very beginning, and then they
kind of restricted there. Towards the end, they restricted it
and it would be like one showing in the theater
like Miles from You. So they like pretty much limited
(34:30):
it at the end and then they went under. But
it was great while it lasted a lot of movies.
R I p Movie Pass. And last thing in movie
news is the Toxic Avenger reboot officially has Peter dink
lidge On as a cast member, which I'm pretty excited about.
Toxic Avenger was a really big cult horror movie back
(34:51):
in the day from Trauma, and it was a movie
that I watched and wanted to essentially become a director
and make my own horror movies. So I think this
is pretty cool. This is getting a reboot mainly because
of a whole lot of people don't know about this movie.
But there's such a kind of underground fan base for
the Toxic Avenger and all the Trouban movies. And I
(35:11):
think now that Peter Dinklage is attached who you would
know from Game of Thrones. He's also an elf and
a lot of things. But I think that will bring
a lot of attention to this movie that kind of
deserves it. And I think this is a movie that
you would absolutely hate, to be honest, Like, you don't
like any kind of horror movie, any kind of golore,
even if it's kind of comical, do you. I don't
(35:31):
even like suspense. You don't like science at all? You
know that. Why are you sounding surprised right now? I
thought it was more like scary things, like horror related
or like demon stuff. There's actual like suspense movies you
don't like. I mean, I didn't even love bird Box.
Oh that's that's kind of like could kind of happened.
Maybe I don't like the feeling of like knowing that
(35:54):
I'm just supposed to be scared. Like sometimes even in
TV shows, I will if they like start like am
I like not scary music, but it just kind of
like tells you something's coming. I will pause it and
watch or not posit muted watching a soundbox. I just
don't like to be scared. Well, the other day I
was watching Midsummer in the living room and I made
a point to pause it when you came through the
(36:15):
living room. Um, I did that for you because I
know you don't like Oars though, and that movie is
pretty freaky, So, um, I did you that song. I
knew everything that happened in that movie, so I didn't
feel like it would have been that scary. But thank you.
I do appreciate that the sounds account. Well, there we
go a lot of big movie news here. Um. It
was funny last time we talked about HBO Max, a
(36:36):
lot of listeners they would shout it out and said
that they would give me their HBO log in, which
is very nice. But I feel wrong taking that it
seems like kind of a weird thing, but I appreciate it.
We'll invest in our own And before we hop out
of here, I got to give my shout out of
the week going over to Twitter this week, and this
one comes from Matt Owens and the tweet is simple.
(36:58):
He's on Twitter at one seven seven and only tweeted
was squaddle that baby, which is quote from your favorite
Christmas movie, right or one of the one of my favorites. Yeah, Christmas,
but that is my one of my favorite quotes from
the movie and something great, great tweets that deserves shout out.
(37:18):
I feel like you bring up that quote anytime you can,
and it's funny, one of my favorite tes the entire movie.
And if you missed it, last week, we did an
entire Christmas episode where we did Kelsey's top five most
rewatchable Christmas movies and we've got a bunch of tweets
about that when people like that episode too. If you
haven't listened to that one yet, go back just one
episode and check that out. It will definitely put you
(37:41):
in the holiday spirit. And I can't wait to get
back home to you, Kelsey. I don't know how to
respond to that publicly. Okay, I'm just kidding. Please come home.
I will come home soon. Um I am currently We
usually do this in our kitchen table right across from
each other, and right now I am sitting on the
(38:01):
bed and I pulled like the little end table close
to me. So if weird not having you directly across,
I'm sitting on our couch that we haven't left here year.
There we go. Thanks everybody for listening to this week's episode.
Would be sure to subscribe, follow, do all the things.
If you're listening on Apple podcasts, hit that five star
rating and write a quick little review, and there we go.
(38:22):
We will talk to you again next Monday here on
the podcast, and until then later
You ever watch a movie with a big, old a
list actor and you think, man, they had to make
such a big paycheck for that movie, And yeah, that's
usually the case. They used to make a lot of money.
But sometimes, sometimes, in very rare instances, they take a
lower amount of money for a particular movie and have
their own explanation why. Sometimes they lead onto oscar, sometimes
(00:23):
they did it as a favor, whatever the case, that's
what we're talking about today. This episode is all about
a list actors who surprisingly took a small amount for
iconic movie roles. I'll also give a movie review for
a brand new movie called Black Bear, which is available
to stream now on demand, and also some major movie
news with Warner Brothers coming in hard with HBO Max
(00:46):
and announcing that all their movies will go onto streaming.
We'll get into those movies and our thoughts on that.
Will have my fiance Kelsey on for that segment without
any further ado, let's get started. In a world where
everyone and their mother has a cast, one man stands
to infiltrate the ears of listeners like never before in
a movie podcast. A man with so much movie knowledge,
(01:10):
he's basically like a walking AUDIMTV, which classes from the
Nashville Podcast Networking Movie Movie Podcast. All right, so just
to paint the picture of why I came up with
the idea for this episode and the research I did
on this is. I am currently sitting in a bedroom
in Los Angeles, California. If you don't know, the main
(01:30):
show I work for is called The Bobby Bones Show,
where I am a writer and the producer over there,
and occasionally I have to travel for the job. This
year has been a lot different because everything got shut down.
We weren't traveling for a very long time. But right
now we're having to do a couple of weeks out
here in Los Angeles, which as a kid, Los Angeles
always seemed like a very far distant place that I
(01:53):
would never get a chance to go. And it wasn't
until I started working in radio and had this job
and to do some traveling that I came to Los Angeles.
I remember the first time I came to California just
how mind point it was for me to be a
trailer park kid who never left walks the Hatchie Texas
let alone, the state let alone, come to the West coast,
(02:14):
and it's still not lost to me how cool it
is to come out to Los Angeles, and me being
such a big movie fan, it's cool to see the
studios and walking around those places. I know everything's kind
of shut down now, but just driving through saying the
Hollywood sign like it's an amazing thing. And while I've
been here this week, I still go out on my runs,
which is pretty much my main form of exercise, but
(02:37):
also how I get the creative juices going. I come
up with a lot of ideas for the main show
and for this podcast while I'm out on a run
and I'm here reading in Los Angeles and I see
all these fancy houses up on the hill, and I
get to thinking, like, man, I bet some famous people
live in those houses, and just thinking about how expensive
it is to own a place out here, and just
(03:00):
how much a movie star actually makes, which got to
mean the thinking, you know what they end up making
per movie. And then I kind of got a little
bit more of like, you know what, I think, sometimes
the paycheck doesn't mean a whole lot to them anymore.
And I've seen this a lot more where actors come
back later in their careers and they're just trying to
do something that's meaningful to them, Like they've done the
(03:20):
big blockbuster movies, but they want to do something that's
a little more you know, refined and something that defines
them as an actor in the legacy they want to
leave on that. They kind of turned down big money
to do smaller projects to have that chance of getting
an oscar basically, And then you also kind of see
early on in actor's careers, they basically take anything to
kind of build up their resume. So you can see,
like a big actor who goes on to have a
(03:42):
very you know, fruitful career in the early days, they
took on a very small paycheck. So what I kind
of went through in research where instances where this happened,
where they ended up having these iconic roles, but the
paychecks don't really amount to what you think they would
have now a lot of time. In a lot of
these cases, it's still a lot of money. Like, don't
(04:02):
get me wrong, it's a big amount to shake a
stick at that we would be like I would take
that in an instance to do essentially a few months
of work, not downplaying how much effort and how hard
it is to be an actor in the craft they have,
but just saying like it's a substantial amount. So I
(04:24):
want to start first with Matthew McConaughey. So going back
first to thirteen. So Matthew McConaughey, he basically had his
run in like the early two thousands where he was
doing a lot of just kind of cheesy rom com
some action adventure movies in there. He was a big
movie star. He would make a lot of money per movie,
around fifteen million, twenty million on the high end. He's
(04:46):
in that a list kind of status there. But around
ten he started taking on smaller rules to kind of
it was almost a reinvention him of self, Like he
did all those movies and he was kind of known
as that guy, but he wanted to do something the
year and just more refined and kind of show like, hey,
I'm like a really great actor. I have the ability
to do that. And where this all comes into play
(05:08):
is he actually turned down a role on Magnum p
I where he was gonna be making fifteen million dollars,
like straight up to do it. That's how much they
would have paid him. But instead he wanted to do
Dallas Buyers Club, where he only earned under two hundred
thousand dollars in exchange for some back end points. So
(05:28):
what that essentially means is he takes that kind of
smaller paycheck up front, but he also gets money on
the back end, whether through like royalties, ticket sales. Basically,
he doesn't make a whole lot of money up front,
but if the movie ends up being a success and
a hit, he'll make it on the back end, which
in this case, that's what happened. The movie only had
(05:49):
a five million dollar budget, like I did this super
low budget where there was basically like one person doing
like the makeup and the costumes were just all just
done on a shoestring budget for this type of movie.
That went on to make sixty million dollars. So he
ended up making his money on the back end. And
not only that, but he landed his first ever Academy
(06:11):
Award for Best Actor. So now, Matthew McConaughey, it's worth
about ninety five million dollars. So to break that down
in what that would mean for you and I listening
how much he's making, he makes about fifty two cents
per second, about thirty one dollars per minute, eighteen hundred
(06:31):
dollars every hour and about forty five thousand dollars per day,
so he's doing pretty well. And I thought it was
cool of him to take less on this movie because
he believed in the project and he believed that it
would go on to be something that they're gonna end
up winning Officers for which not only did he, but
also Jared Letto did for Best Supporting Actor. And I
(06:52):
think since then we kind of take Matthew McConaughey a
little bit more seriously. He's not just the googby alright, alright, alright, guy,
He's kind of a legit dramatic actor now, whether it
be in movies or in TV. So I think this
was good on him. You know, tank the less money upfront,
make it on the back end. Either way, you get
to go home with an oscar. Now, all right, now
(07:13):
let's talk about Robert Downey Jr. And some of the Avengers.
So starting with Robert Downey Jr. The first Iron Man movie,
which basically kicked off the entire Marvel franchise and made
it what it is today, greatly due to how great
he was in the movie. And he only had a
five hundred thousand dollars salary for that first movie, and
let's just say since then he has gotten paid but
(07:36):
five thousand dollars to be the leading man in that
type of movie. At the time was a very small scale,
Like I'm talking a legit a list actor at the
top of their game will probably bring in on the
higher end twenty million dollars for a traditional theatrical release.
It's a little bit different now in the world of streaming,
(07:57):
like Netflix is paying way more in that right now,
they're getting up in too, like the forty sixty million
dollar range. But for an actor just with a straight
up theatrical at least, it's usually about fifteen twenty million
on the higher end, So five hundred thousand dollars it's
significantly less, but that's what it was at the time.
He was kind of having a comeback at this time.
(08:19):
But also like Matthew McConaughey, being that he took the
small upfront, he got the money in the back end
and ended up making two point five million dollars with
the success of the movie, ended up making fifty million
dollars for the first Avenger film, and then at the
very end of it, by the time we got to
End Game, he was making seventy five million dollars per
(08:39):
Marvel movie, so he's worth now about three d and
ninety six to roughly four hundred and thirty five million dollars.
So again I've kind of learned this in my life.
Whenever you first started something in approving yourself, you're gonna
have to take a little bit less money, and then
once you prove your worth, that's kind of when you
get paid. And then kind of going back to if
(09:02):
I will quote one of my favorite superhero movies, The
Dark Night, when Joker says, if you're good at something,
never do it for free. Words of wisdom from the
Joker here. Also staying in the kind of Avengers world
is Chris Evans was only paid a million dollars for
the first Captain America film, and that was probably my
(09:22):
least favorite one, and I didn't know that they would
kind of be successful after that one. I thought that
one was a little bit slow. I didn't think the
villain was all that great, and he was in that
movie and we never saw him again, and I thought
they could have brought it back in some capacity. I
think that's also what a lot of the Marvel movies
were kind of lacking in the beginning, they didn't have
great villains, but needless to say, he really went on
(09:43):
to carry the Marvel movies. Now they were really heavy
on having iron Man being everything, whether it be the
Avengers movies or just having cameos and other Marvel movies,
because he carried the movie so much of putting his
name on it. People loved Robert Downey Jr. Is iron Man,
but I think underneath that, Chris Evans really kind of
(10:03):
created this foundation of the movies to where he was
right up there with iron Man as far as carrying
being able to carry a movie. So I thought he
should have been paid a lot more throughout, but he
ended up only making about fifteen million dollars per movies,
so they were just giving Robert Downey Jr. All the
money here. But even on the lower end, Chris Himsworth,
who played Store, he only took on a hundred and
(10:24):
fifty thousand dollars to play Thor in the first one.
But like Chris Evans, by the time he got to
the later movies, he made fifteen million dollars for Stora Ragnarok.
So I think in their cases it was just a
matter of them being able to show their worth and
showing that they could carry these movies so they got
their paycheck later. In Jonah Hill's case, when it came
to the Wolf of Wall Street, he accepted sixty thousand
(10:47):
dollars and it was mainly because he wanted to work
with Martin Scorsese, who was a legendary director, and for
an actor to be able to say that they worked
with one of their heroes probably means a lot to him.
Think that really is what kind of sealed the deal
for him when he was just offered this role in
the ability to work with Martin Scorsese, he was like,
(11:08):
I'll basically do whatever, Like right when the deal was
offered to him, he took it and signed it and
was like, I just don't want them to take this
away from me, Like I want to be able to
work with Martin Scorsese. And when you just think of
the history of movies that he has, that they're all
legendary in their own way, and if you're in any
of his movies, you're basically going to leave behind that
(11:29):
same legacy. You're gonna be a part of his collection
of films. So I could see with an actor like him,
which also he was mainly a communicy actor at the time.
He'd done you know, money Wall, but he'd never really
been in a drama like this before, which he just
has some commenty in it too, but it's just seeing
Jonah Hill in a way you really haven't expected to
see him before. He's not the guy from super Band
(11:49):
at this when he's not playing Seth. So that's what
he did. He took the sixty thou dollars, that's all
he made from this movie, but then went on to
be nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Award,
and probably he was like biggest moment of his career
to date. Like, aside from him being able to do that,
he got to work with Martin Scorsese and since you know,
(12:10):
done a little bit of work and directing, he directed
a movie called Mid Nineties which came out a couple
of years ago. And I bet a lot of being
able to work with Martin Scorsese and a director of
that caliber really kind of gave him some edge and
gave him some knowledge that he would not have acquired
any other way. Again, I can kind of relate this
back to me. I started out as an unpaid intern
(12:30):
I worked for free for about a year and a half,
and a lot of people would come to me and
be like, dude, why are you doing this for free?
Like you're really good at this, you should be getting
paid by now. And I was like, you know what,
I know that eventually this will turn into something, and
I know that I am learning things that are invaluable.
And maybe people think I'm crazy right now, but just
(12:51):
know that this will pay off later. And it ended up,
you know, working out for me like it did for
Jonah Hill. You just can't really put a price on experience.
It's like that being able to work with somebody so
great and being able just to kind of experience that firsthand.
That's something in an internship that you know what it's
all about. Really, So I wouldn't go back and never
(13:12):
be I look back and I'm fine that I never
made a dime early on when I was doing this thing.
Ten years later, I'm still here doing my own podcast,
which is what I set out to do from the
very beginning. So hey, full circle moment. Here, we'll roll
through some more of these that I found. Um, if
you're watching Christmas movies right now or you're a big
fan of the movie Home Alone, a very small kind
(13:34):
of cameo at the very end is John Candy. It's
really an iconic cameo, Like you don't really realize how
big of a part of that movie is. And a
lot of that scene he just did on improv and
they were basically just like, hey, just show up to
set one day, knock out these scenes and you'll be
in the movie. And he ended up only making four
hundred and fourteen dollars for that movie. So at the
(13:57):
very end, if you don't remember, at the movie, he's
the one who offers Evan's mom a ride to go
and get to Kevin because she can't get a flight
out anywhere, and he has the whole polka band and
the whole idea like that whole like kind of back
and forth between her and him was a lot of
just his improv. So for fourteen dollars, and sadly, John
Candy died just three years after that movie came out,
(14:19):
but phenomenal actor. If you're not familiar with all of
his movies from anything of Splash Baseball's Uncle Buck, highly
recommend just sitting down over the holiday break and watching
a good old John Candy movie Myselfsky Polka, King of
the Midwest, the Kenosha Kickers. No, that's okay. I thought
(14:40):
you might have recognized anyways. Um, I had a few
hits a few years ago. That's why, you know, just Polca, PoCA,
Polka Folka. And then we got Jennifer Lopez who was
not paid a single dollar for her role in Hustlers,
which is like super surprising to me because you think
Jennifer Lopez wouldn't even show up to a place unless
(15:01):
she had, like I don't know, ten fifty million dollars guaranteed.
But she believed in this movie so much she was like,
I don't want to take a salary. I found an
interview she did in g Q and she basically said,
I did it for free, I produced it, I bank
on myself. She said, like Jenny from the Block, I
do what I want, I do what I love. So
that's pretty amazing. And that was I felt a very
(15:22):
big snub for her. She, along with that movie should
have been nominated when it came out for the Oscars.
But it's cool to see a celebrity and an actress
of her status just to be that passionate about a
project and just want to get it made. Also, Hillary
Swink in the movie Boys Don't Cry. She was paid
just three thousand dollars for that role. And this movie
(15:44):
was very early on in her career. She had made
a whole lot of money doing any role. And what
she found out is that from a movie job, you
have to make five thousand dollars in order to qualify
for health insurance. And while making a movie, she had
to get a prescription. Field went to this pharmacy and
they told her, all right, this is gonna be a
(16:05):
hundred and sixty dollars and she's like, is that with
my insurance? And they were like, yep. Turns out she
had an Academy award, didn't have health insurance. Boom. George
Clooney one of the highest paid salons right now. But
in order to write, direct, and star in the movie
good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney only received a
(16:26):
three dollar salary. That's right, one two three dollars. That's it.
I literally have that amount in my wallet. I could
hire George Clooney now if I wanted for what he
made making this movie. So this was basically just a
passion project for George Clooney. We've kind of seen a
theme here. People just really believe in a movie they
will basically make it for nothing. This one paid off
(16:48):
because it was nominated for not one, not two, not three,
not even four, not even five, but six Academy Awards
back in two thousand and six. A passion project that
actually paid off. Now. I have friends who do passing
projects sometimes, whether it be some kind of hip hop
album they're making their bedroom, and I gotta say, I
don't think those have paid off quite like this one.
(17:09):
So be passionate but also has some talent. Jennifer Lawrence
who made about five hundred thousand dollars for her breakout
role as catanists Everdeen in The Hunger Game and then
went on to make thousands and millions in the rest
of that franchise, and now it just makes pretty much
that for every single movie. But when it came to
her first critically acclaimed role in Winter's Bone, she only
(17:30):
made three thousand dollars per week. That was it got
nominated for Oscar, but she only made three hundred thousand
dollars a week, and even later in her career for
like movies like American Hustle, she said, you know, she
still felt like there was a gender pay gap, like
her and Amy Adams were paid a lot less than
her male co stars. She said, like early on in
her career, she you know, didn't really know how to negotiate.
(17:52):
She would just kind of give up early. I mean,
that's also kind of along the lines of gal Gadot
and Wonder Woman. For the very first one, she only
made three hundred thousand dollars and that movie ended up
making eight hundred and twenty one million worldwide. Like that,
math makes no sense to me. Meanwhile, you got Superman
making tons of money and his movies are terrible. A
(18:14):
few more of these a little surprising. Brad Pitt was
only paid six thousand dollars for his role in Filma
and Louise. Bill Murray earned about nine thousand dollars for
his work on Rushmore ended up being an indie classic,
though Dustin Hoffman only made about seventeen thousand for his
breakout role in The Graduate. Julia Roberts made about fifty
thousand dollars to start in the very first movie Mystic Pizza,
(18:37):
and then only made three hundred thousand dollars for one
of her most iconic roles of all time pretty woman
like That's it. John Travolta only made a hundred and
fifty thousand dollars for his role in Pulp Fiction, which
I just saw him do a commercial the other day
where he's basically reenacting that dance scene, so he's made
up his money there. And then, finally, from one of
my favorite movies, the original Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis. It
(19:00):
was a very new actress at the time, basically put
her on the map. She only made eight thousand dollars,
so they shot that entire movie and only four weeks.
She was paid two thousand dollars per week. And also
not only that, she bought her own costume for the movie,
actually got it from a J. C. Penny's. Think about that.
Lorie Strode's iconic look was the J. C. Penny's original.
(19:21):
So if you ever wondered how much actors made for
some of your favorite movies, there you go. All right,
let's get into a movie review now. I want to
talk about the movie Black Bear, which just came out
last Friday, and I gotta say this was an unexpected
hit for me. I love Aubrey Plaza, so I was
(19:43):
gonna watch this movie no matter what. But upon turning
this movie on and seeing what it ended up being about,
I was blown away. And I'm gonna say this early,
this could possibly be one of my favorite movies of
Before I get into that full review, here's just a
little bit of the movie black bear line since the
(20:05):
sudden I got here, this is what I want to
be normal people again. So going into this movie, I
didn't know a whole lot what it was going to
be about. I saw a quick snip, but the trailer
(20:27):
mainly saw it from Aubrey Plaza promoting the movie on
her Instagram page, I just watched Happiest Season, so I
was like, all right, I'm down to see her in
a dramatic role now, which I mainly know her as
a comedic actress. I know her from Parks and Wreck
and a bunch of stuff she did early in her
career that was, you know, more towards just straight up
comedy stuff. And then seeing her in this movie being
(20:49):
so intense and kind of like, oh man, like it's
like the range on Albredy Plaza in this movie. It's
pretty phenomenal. It's seeing her in a way I've never
seen her before. And I don't want to completely ruin
what the movie is about, because for me, I watched
it just on a whim. I knew it was gonna
be good when it was something brand new that you
could stream on at home. And the other great thing
(21:11):
about this that I'll mention right now, it only costs
six dollars to rent. Yeah, that's a big thing. Like
all the new movies coming out at home or twenty bucks,
this one will only cost you seven bucks wherever you
can stream video on the Man movie. So that was
a big selling point for me from the very beginning.
And I won't really reveal what happens throughout the movie,
but it just almost felt like two movies into one.
(21:34):
And what the movie is essentially about, which you kind
of pick up from the trailer, which is about as
much of a spoiler as I ever give out. I
only talk about something that shown in the trailer. It's
about this woman who goes to stay at a bed
and breakfast with this other couple and there's just some
crazy tension between the two because they feel like the
husband has feelings for this person coming to stay with them.
(21:55):
But that when you but then what you find out
later while watching this movie, it turns into being a
movie about making a movie and the director trying to
get a really dramatic performance out of Aubrey Plaza and
doing things that kind of manipulator in the process, and
it gets very intense. So this movie is a little
bit meta in the sense that it's like a movie
within a movie about filmmaking. But maybe just because I
(22:18):
love movies so much and I love the process behind it,
it was kind of cool to see that different perspective,
like something pulled kind of behind the curtain a little bit.
And what it did a really good job of When
it did make the flip into like a chapter two,
it's kind of broken into two chapters, it's still kept
this kind of intensity in this kind of just suspense
(22:38):
that was going while you're the one experiencing it with
the characters in the movie. So I just thought that
was a really interesting thing. And even if it's kind
of a meta kind of concept, I think they did
it pretty well. And there was just something about this
movie just from the dialogue that just had me like
pulled in. It wasn't anything crazy, no crazy special effects
(22:59):
or no crazy horror blood things like that. It was
just like intense dialogue and intense conversations, and you just
really see how great of an actress that Aubrey Plase
is to see that range in her to go from
like almost being two characters in this movie. In a sense,
it's really kind of captivating and a really unique way
to do something that I had, Like, I didn't even
(23:21):
know I needed this movie in my life until I
was watching it. And there's some things in this movie
that I haven't seen in movies in a long time.
And it's a fair warning it is rated R. And
there's there's man butt in this movie. I haven't seen
man butt in a movie in quite a while. I
think the total butt count in this movie is maybe two,
maybe three possibly butts in this entire movie, which is
(23:43):
something you don't see all the time anymore. And also
smoking don't say that a whole lot of movies anymore.
But I think they kind of did it as a
tactic to kind of create Aubrey Plaza's character when you're
seeing her as the actress acting in this movie. So
that was kind of an interesting point too. So from
the start of this movie, I kind of got misery vibe.
I thought it was going to have that kind of
a twist, but what I ended up getting was two
(24:04):
movies in one, and Aubrey Plaza is really perfect in
both of them. So I think if you're looking for
something a little bit different as far as like a
drama with a little bit of not even common just
a little like dark comedy in there, I really think
you'll enjoy this one. It has a unique perspective, It
felt fresh and just something that I didn't know I needed,
(24:26):
like I said earlier, and kind of a sleeper pick
in there to be one of my favorites. There were
just something that just captivated me in a way that
I haven't been before. There was parts of the movie
where I like stood up and put my hands on
my head, like literally got out of my seat to
react to what I was seeing on screen. Has a
really cool feel, looks amazing, It's done, I would say
pretty close to perfect and what I was looking for.
(24:48):
Would easily give it four out of five bears. And honestly,
I hope to see Aubrey Plaza do some more dramatic
girls like this. She's amazing at it. All right, let's
get into some movie news now, and I'm joined by
my co hot in fiance Kelsey, who is back home
in Nashville. How are you, Kelsey? I'm good? How are
you good? It is the first time we've ever done
movie news with us in different states, even though we
(25:10):
were long distance for two years. This is kind of
like become my favorite part of the podcast because we
get to just talk about movie news, go back and forth,
and I think listeners like this. If you are listening
now and do enjoy this segment with Kelsey, give us
a tweet, send us an Instagram message or something. How
do you feel about this segment? I like it. It's fun.
I feel like people get to hear are like natural banter. Well,
(25:31):
there we go. Let's get into the biggest movie headline
of the week, and it's gonna pretty much change the
way we watch movies for the entire year. And Warner
Brothers coming in strong announcing that all of their movies
next year are coming to theaters and directly onto HBO Max.
(25:52):
And we've been talking about this for a minute now
because we're like, should we get HBO Max? Should we
try just to hang on to the trial, But now
the pretty much sets that we're gonna have to get
it and pay for it because we want to watch
all these movies. And I think it's pretty cool what
they're doing here. Are you excited about it? I am,
which I think paying for that service goes back to
(26:12):
our discussion last week about whether or not we will
pay for movies. So I'm just just getting this on
the record. We can pay for HBO Max. Is that
a yet? Yes, we can pay for HBO Max because
the great, the great thing that they're doing is you
just pay the subscription for HBO Max and you get
these movies. The only real catch here is that they
will only be available for thirty days, so they come
out in theaters, they come out on their streaming service,
(26:34):
and you can have like thirty days to watch them.
But they're not doing the whole Disney Plus thing that
charge thirty dollars, which ended up pretty much failing, which
we did watch that Muan movie Bade this thirty bucks.
So this is really them kind of saying like, hey,
we're here with HBO Max and we're gonna like change everything.
I think movie theaters are pretty upset. I read a
whole article with an interview with the CEO of Warner
(26:57):
and he's like Yeah, they're pretty much like not happy
about this, but we told them that, you know, this
is better than giving you nothing. This is kind of
working towards being able to enjoy new content again, because
I mean, they just can't keep the laying movies on
and on and on without us seeing anything. This is
kind of that in between. Do you think that movie
theaters will kind of die out because it is a deal?
(27:20):
What do you think? I don't think they'll die out.
I still think there's an experience there in going I
think like going to see a movie in theaters is
more of like that would be more of like a
date night, like something you can do. I feel like
after this year, nobody's really gonna want to be home anymore.
Like I feel like once we're let out of our houses,
we're all just gonna never want to be home. So
I think that there's still some value in going to
(27:42):
the movie theater and it's an experience, um just kind
of those big ticket movies. But I'm also I'm looking
at your tweet now about this, and you said, looks
like I'm not leaving my couch for a while. I
just wanted to want to know we haven't left the
couch like, you're just you haven't. We have a lot
of couch this year. Like, I think we are probably
gonna need a new couch, like sooner than anticipated because
(28:02):
we've just sat on the couch for this entire year. Yeah,
the button prints getting pretty bad right now. It's not
like you aren't going to leave the couch, you just
you haven't yet going to continue. I was anticipating at
some point in to get out of the house and
go to a movie. But I think what this is
gonna do. It's gonna give people the option. Who if
you're not comfortable going into a movie theater. But even
(28:23):
before the pandemic started, people were saying, Hey, we want
to be able to watch these movies at home too.
We like home theater systems and TVs and surround sound
has all gotten so much better. At home, you have
that ability to still enjoy a movie to that kind
of quality and that comfort of just you know, walking
to your living room. So I think this is something
people have been wanting. Is just kind of given them
a reason to do it this year while kind of
(28:44):
still pissing off a movie theater. So yeah, I honestly
don't know now if I would go back to a
movie theater. Again, this is only Warner Brothers, but I
could see other places following suit too. Yeah, we may
need to order that new couch. Do we also to
get a sound of bar? We do need a sound.
I can get a tweet the other day of somebody asking,
(29:05):
like the setup, I have to watch movies and the
only thing I'm really particular about is the picture, Like
I don't I haven't invested in getting anything for the
sound yet, which I think you know, we're just saying
that's our next step. But um, at the start of
this whole thing, it was just kind of my idea
to like, Okay, I'm gonna need a new TV because
we're gonna be watching a lot of things at home. Now.
(29:25):
We just have a TV that barely fits on our
TV stand. That's true. The first time I plugged that
thing in, I literally laughed out loud because it was
so massive in there and it barely fit on the
on the little TV stands. So we may need to
upgrade that too. So I just I just hear dollar
signs out of this conversation. But among the movies coming out,
I mean everything from Mortal Kombat to Space Jam, which
(29:46):
I've been looking forward to, to the Suicide Squad Matrix,
four Dune. There's just so many movies that they're putting out,
and along the same lines what I was talking about
this quality is they're also being released in four K.
And then the other thing we about is they are
going to get rid of their seventh day trial, which
we were saying, yeah, they're probably not going to keep
that around for much longer. So I think our plane
(30:07):
has kind of gone there. Yeah, I mean there was
no that's just a bad business plan. Anyone can see that.
And I don't have a business degree, but like you're
gonna offer a seven day free trial and put out
a huge movie, Everyone's just going to sign up, and
there are those people that would forget to cancel, but
I think the majority would try to cancel, So probably
smart that they're doing that. They got to make their
(30:27):
money back somewhere, because I mean, these movies cost so
much money. But I think they'll get a lot of
subscribers out of this. I'm curious to see how this
plays out, and right now they're only saying that this
will only be but I think they're just saying that
not to make any more movie heaters mad because pretty
much the head of AMC like wants to murder them
right now. I mean I still enjoy it. Like I said,
it's like an experience going into the movies. I mean,
(30:49):
I think there's something to be said. You get kind
of dressed up and you leave the house and they're
making a movie. Theater is a lot more comfortable, Like
AMC in particular have some great leather recliners though, So
I still would go the movies, not anytime soon, but
eventually I don't want them to completely die out. Are
you saying we should get leather recliners? Some lazy boys
his and hers? The lazy boys walked myself into that one.
(31:14):
Also in movie news, speaking of paying for movies, Mulan
is now available for free on Disney Plus. Now. We
paid the thirty bucks and we were like, hey, don't
pay it, like it's not worth it. Would you say, now,
if people have Disney Plus to watch, move on? Sure?
I mean I I didn't really enjoy that movie. It
was it didn't feel like it did. No. If you're
(31:36):
looking for something to watch, like I know kids are
probably getting out of school now, sure watch. It wasn't
my favorite thing. I'm probably never going to rewatch it. Yeah,
it just felt like a Disney war movie. It didn't
have the charm is the original one, like the songs
that weren't in there, Mooshoe wasn't in there. I felt
it lacked a little bit. It looked amazing like they
(31:57):
filmed that to be seen in a big movie screen.
But aside from that, they took a lot away from
the story and it didn't really feel like the same movie.
So but also, mulan Is just isn't one of my
favorite Disney movies. Also in movie news, the Oscars said
that they will be live and in person next year.
Usually goes down in February and now won't happen until April,
(32:23):
but it won't be a virtual thing. They'll be back
with actors and actresses in the actual awards ceremony, which
for me, the Oscars are kind of like my super Bowl,
which I mean, I'll watch the Super Bowl as well,
but I get so invested in the Oscars and watching
all the Oscar movies and making my picks and you know,
(32:44):
when those are on. It's an event for me that
I really look forward to every year. And I think
they can do it in a safe way, especially by April,
and I was kind of thinking of when they did,
like the c m as that kind of had a
weird field to where it felt like they were just
a conference room kind of standing around and like chairs
and tables, but they were all there, like all the
(33:05):
people nominated and performing were there. So the weird thing
about oscars is there's I mean there's usually performances too,
but it's just kind of people hanging out in the room.
So I guess that's the oppost they're going to have,
just not having a full on audience there. But do
you like the oscars? Do you like watching them? I do?
I feel like I don't typically know a lot of
(33:25):
the movies. The only beer that I had seen a
lot of the movies with the year that that movie
pass thing was a big deal and which I mean
that went under quickly. What did I pay? I paid
like ten dollars a month and I could see like
a movie a day, which was great. I saw so
many movies I never would have seen because I was like,
I don't really have to pay for this um But yeah,
(33:47):
I don't. I don't always know all of the Oscar
movies I will watch them, though I enjoy them. I'm
kind of wondering what's going to be nominated next year.
Not that much has come out Sonic the Hedgehog, like
The Hedgehog for Best Picture. Yeah, yeah, I remember when
Movie Pass came out, everybody tagged being in there, like
you gotta get this, you gotta go, you know, get
this movie Pass that you can see all these movies,
(34:08):
and I never got it. I knew it was going
to fail from the very start. I'm like, there's no
way that they're going to be able to keep up
with that business plan like of allowing you to watch
however many movies you wanted, and which I think that's
how it was at the very beginning, and then they
kind of restricted there. Towards the end, they restricted it
and it would be like one showing in the theater
like Miles from You. So they like pretty much limited
(34:30):
it at the end and then they went under. But
it was great while it lasted a lot of movies.
R I p Movie Pass. And last thing in movie
news is the Toxic Avenger reboot officially has Peter dink
lidge On as a cast member, which I'm pretty excited about.
Toxic Avenger was a really big cult horror movie back
(34:51):
in the day from Trauma, and it was a movie
that I watched and wanted to essentially become a director
and make my own horror movies. So I think this
is pretty cool. This is getting a reboot mainly because
of a whole lot of people don't know about this movie.
But there's such a kind of underground fan base for
the Toxic Avenger and all the Trouban movies. And I
(35:11):
think now that Peter Dinklage is attached who you would
know from Game of Thrones. He's also an elf and
a lot of things. But I think that will bring
a lot of attention to this movie that kind of
deserves it. And I think this is a movie that
you would absolutely hate, to be honest, Like, you don't
like any kind of horror movie, any kind of golore,
even if it's kind of comical, do you. I don't
(35:31):
even like suspense. You don't like science at all? You
know that. Why are you sounding surprised right now? I
thought it was more like scary things, like horror related
or like demon stuff. There's actual like suspense movies you
don't like. I mean, I didn't even love bird Box.
Oh that's that's kind of like could kind of happened.
Maybe I don't like the feeling of like knowing that
(35:54):
I'm just supposed to be scared. Like sometimes even in
TV shows, I will if they like start like am
I like not scary music, but it just kind of
like tells you something's coming. I will pause it and
watch or not posit muted watching a soundbox. I just
don't like to be scared. Well, the other day I
was watching Midsummer in the living room and I made
a point to pause it when you came through the
(36:15):
living room. Um, I did that for you because I
know you don't like Oars though, and that movie is
pretty freaky, So, um, I did you that song. I
knew everything that happened in that movie, so I didn't
feel like it would have been that scary. But thank you.
I do appreciate that the sounds account. Well, there we
go a lot of big movie news here. Um. It
was funny last time we talked about HBO Max, a
(36:36):
lot of listeners they would shout it out and said
that they would give me their HBO log in, which
is very nice. But I feel wrong taking that it
seems like kind of a weird thing, but I appreciate it.
We'll invest in our own And before we hop out
of here, I got to give my shout out of
the week going over to Twitter this week, and this
one comes from Matt Owens and the tweet is simple.
(36:58):
He's on Twitter at one seven seven and only tweeted
was squaddle that baby, which is quote from your favorite
Christmas movie, right or one of the one of my favorites. Yeah, Christmas,
but that is my one of my favorite quotes from
the movie and something great, great tweets that deserves shout out.
(37:18):
I feel like you bring up that quote anytime you can,
and it's funny, one of my favorite tes the entire movie.
And if you missed it, last week, we did an
entire Christmas episode where we did Kelsey's top five most
rewatchable Christmas movies and we've got a bunch of tweets
about that when people like that episode too. If you
haven't listened to that one yet, go back just one
episode and check that out. It will definitely put you
(37:41):
in the holiday spirit. And I can't wait to get
back home to you, Kelsey. I don't know how to
respond to that publicly. Okay, I'm just kidding. Please come home.
I will come home soon. Um I am currently We
usually do this in our kitchen table right across from
each other, and right now I am sitting on the
(38:01):
bed and I pulled like the little end table close
to me. So if weird not having you directly across,
I'm sitting on our couch that we haven't left here year.
There we go. Thanks everybody for listening to this week's episode.
Would be sure to subscribe, follow, do all the things.
If you're listening on Apple podcasts, hit that five star
rating and write a quick little review, and there we go.
(38:22):
We will talk to you again next Monday here on
the podcast, and until then later
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