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Indy Jones payout!

Indy Jones payout!

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-indianajones21apr21,0,3480460.story


I guess Spielberg, Lucas and Harrison Ford have all agreed to only get paid after the movie makes $400 million in sales. If the movie tanks they make nothing. But that is not likely. After the the movies makes $400 million the three of them split every 87 cents of every dollar taken in. The other three Indian Jones movies have a made $1.2 billion worldwide.

I would guess these guys are going to clean up. They are all super rich anyway so they can make a deal like this.
 
Sad Max, see? :)

That's terrific news!

I knew Spielberg was going to do that. He's the the Indiana Jones of filmmaking!

I hope it will become the new model.

It's best for everyone this way: if the movie is successful, the talent gets a healthy pay. And so does the studio.

Otherwise - zilch.

And no huge preliminary payments, thus alleviating budgets.

But I wonder if the studios are willing to accept such a thing only for a Spielberg-caliber filmmaker?
 
This business model is good and bad.

Good:
Because it would lower budgets. Make the talent/crew work a little harder because they want the movie to be successful.

Bad:
Because it gives too much control to the studios. New Line just tried to screw Peter Jackson with their "creative accounting" just imagine what would happen to us "no names" if this became the new practice. The studio/distributor could claim all day long they are still making back their expenses and no actor or director would get paid. And what happens when you make three movies and don't make a cent on any of them... you end up broke. This works for Spielberg and Lucas because they are all ready wealthy (and deservedly so) but this wouldn't work for everyone under the movie sun.

So I say, fine do this for popcorn blockbusters. It may thin out some of the bad ones and that would be great. But you couldn't do this for low budget movies (10 million and down) when people are hoping for a pay check so they can pay rent.
 
Second thought on good:
Now for those directors (like me) that do this as a hobby or maybe that first feature film where I've mortaged the house... this would be great, because I get a well known actor for nothing until the movie made money (most likely in DVD sales)... now this can happen this way today, with deferred pay, but most "named" actors don't do this.
 
Cash break deals are the big new thing right now for the Hanks, Pitt, Jolie and Carrey kinda crowd. The deferment has the potential to pay huge dividends - over 80% on whatever comes after the P&A break-even.

It makes sense on the biggest franchise shows. Batman, Jones and Treasure are perfect examples of pictures that would do well under cash break situations. They are almost guaranteed a major payday - and, as a contractual benefit, everyone theoretically "knows" exactly at what point they stand to start making money.

These deals are put together by the world's best agents. Unless the picture tanks in a major way, the scale will slide in a favorable way for their client, and them by extension.

Will major players all be willing to forego up-front money on all features moving forward? Not likely, but it could work if their card rate were paid in addition to a smaller advance to lock them into any given property.

You really have to believe in the picture to ink one of these deals, and even the franchise shows aren't always golden tickets.

Note that below-the-line craftspeople aren't affected by (and do not benefit from) these types of contracts.

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