how big is the director's check?

C

Cheesesailor77

Veteran
just wondering, since u always hear how much the lastest star is making for the next blockbuster or oscar hopeful.

Beside the rediculous $30,000,000 reported for Jackson to make King Kong (you go pete!) how much does say, Fincher, or Spike Jones or whoever of a similar draw make per movie?

anyone know?
 
yikes, but there are a LOT of directors out there, anyone know how much a director makes when ppl actually go to see a movie because that person directed?

thanks rose :)
 
Rosestar said:
I should have listened to my mother and been a plumber!
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You mean:

Jack Colton: Goddamn it, I knew I should've listened to my mother. I could've been a cosmetic surgeon, five hundred thou a year, up to my neck in tits and ass.

Romancing the Stone 1984
 
Director's pay packets are normally pretty complicated because of all the different percentage points from video and additional markets.

I heard that Spielberg made $293 million off Jurassic Park. I think Jackson eventually made $150M of LOTR, plus his shares in Weta and other companies must have gone through the roof!

A step down, I heard Brett Ratner got $6M up front for Red Dragon, and a %age I guess. Cameron had to refuse his $3M director and producing fees for Titanic in order to finish the film. I think he still got $3M for writing it though, plus about $100M by the end of the run. I am not sure about Fincher or Spike. These are just figures I have heard but I have seen the breakdown of Spielberg's contract for JP, it is on the web somewhere.

One day, one day...
 
That's a tough question and I think mmmm answered it well. Directors can negotiate a higher salary just like actors can. There's not a going rate. They can take less upfront and opt for the percentage points or they can work for nothing because they really feel strongly about the project. If a company specifically wants "this director" for a project then the director is in the drivers seat ($$$). But it would be nice to know how much some of the directors are getting.
 
PK Gillock said:
That's a tough question and I think mmmm answered it well. Directors can negotiate a higher salary just like actors can. There's not a going rate. They can take less upfront and opt for the percentage points or they can work for nothing because they really feel strongly about the project. If a company specifically wants "this director" for a project then the director is in the drivers seat ($$$). But it would be nice to know how much some of the directors are getting.
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I wonder how much the regular joes are earning...what about the smaller Directors...hehe...anyone want to jump in...??
 
The general rule of a thumb is that a director is paid around 3% of the film's below the line budget. So when you figure the average budget on a Hollywood film is $87 million, minus around $35 million for the star's salaries, and another $20 million for the marketing, you are looking at roughly $32 million for the below the line budget. So you are then looking at a director's salary around $960,000.

The other wrinkle to that is that a direct could spend 4-5 years working on just one project, and it might be 2-3 years before he gets hired for another project. If you spread that salary across eight years you are looking at the equivalent of $120,000 per year before taxes. That's about the same is a middle level executive for a larger company.

The other thing to keep in mind is that this is the general rule of thumb for Hollywood directors with a few successful films under the belts. The DGA minimums are between $83,950 (for films with a budget under $500,000) to $173,651 (for film with a budget over $1.5 million). And if you're doing a non-union indie film you might get paid even less.

Of course things like back end points can be brought up when negotiating your contract.

Rob
 
Here's the rate card from the Director's Guild of America:
http://dga.org/contracts/ratecards_film_ba_04-05.php3

Any director who's "name" value (like Spielberg, Ron Howard, etc) is going to be able to command big bucks. Any director who doesn't have "name" value will likely get the minimum.

And if they're not in the DGA? Directors are likely to get pennies, if anything. The law of supply and demand prevails, and there's a phenomenal oversupply of wanna-be directors, vs. the # of available jobs... so if it's non-DGA, you can pretty much count on working for "deferral", etc.

*edit* - Rob beat me to it...
 
anyone have any info. on how much spot directors make. i understand there is no accurate figure, but just a ballpark figure would work. along the lines of directors mark romanek, david lachapelle, and floria sigismondi.

thanks.
 
John_Hudson said:
You mean:

Jack Colton: Goddamn it, I knew I should've listened to my mother. I could've been a cosmetic surgeon, five hundred thou a year, up to my neck in tits and ass.

Romancing the Stone 1984
Click to expand...


Isn't there a whole thread devoted to this....
 
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