I am curious as to what your source is that allows you to speak with such absolute certainty in multiple posts, despite the fact that your information contradicts what virtually every other published source, from Harve Bennett to Leonard Nimoy to Nicholas Meyer to William Shatner, has to say on the matter.
Star Trek Salaries
- Thread starter Komack
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I’ve wondered what if, with X, they had decided to pitch a “final Trek film” rather than “final TNG film,” cutting loose some of TNG’s lesser draws (Frakes, Sirtis, Burton, McFadden) and bringing in, say, Mulgrew (as more than a cameo), Ryan, and Auberjonois. What would that have meant, salary-wise? Do you think it might have generated more interest than TWOK:TNG?
Convention appearances by Bjo Trimble, who was friendly with Kirstie Alley between ST II and III, a time when Ms Alley came under much fan criticism for not signing on for ST III. Bjo spoke with her about her decision to take on a starring role in a stage play, instead of taking a paycut to do ST III (which the ST fans may have preferred for themselves). Since Bjo's verbal account was made in all innocence, long before anything appeared in print by Paramount officials, I still tend to favour that personal account.
Also annual convention appearances by Richard Arnold over several decades, answering questions from the convention audiences. He was ST Archivist from ST IV to Roddenberry's death.
Harve Bennett, Leonard Nimoy, Nicholas Meyer and William Shatner might have their versions in print in more places, but they were usually speaking as Paramount employees at the time. They could hardly admit in interviews that Ms Alley was perhaps screwed over by Paramount, or was a victim of a major rethink by Nimoy about passing on his Spock mantle to a young woman.
Salary wise, it would probably work like so...
Patrick Stewart
Brent Spiner
Kate Mulgrew
Jeri Ryan
Michael Dorn/Rene Auberjoinois
I don't think a Voyager or Deep Space 9 film would have attracted anywhere near the same level of interest as a TNG movie. Mulgrew was permitted a cameo in NEM, only because she was the most recognisable member of the cast from that series (disregarding Jeri Ryan, who wasn't available depending on which report you go by).
I agree, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need all seven of the TNG main cast. As long as you have Picard, Data, and Worf, you’re going to draw the TNG fans. What if they had combined those three with some of the best characters from the other two recently-concluded series, jettisoning some of the lesser TNG characters to make room?
Paramount tried to market NEM as an “event film,” and failed badly. Picard, Data, Worf, Janeway, Seven, Odo and Weyoun on a Federation-Dominion mission to deal with a Borg crisis might have been more conducive to making an event film than was remaking TWOK.
Hmm. Well, I certainly would accept Bjo Trimble as a reputable source of information. Never-the-less, as you say, she was a personal friend of Kirstie Alley, which means a couple of things. First, while she was no doubt accurately relaying the information she received, she was relying solely on what Alley told her, and had no firsthand knowledge of the situation. Second, as a personal friend, she was no doubt predisposed to view the situation from Alley's point of view. That doesn't mean that she's a liar, or that her version is wrong. But it does mean that you have to accept that it probably has a certain bias, just as Bennett or Nimoy's version has a certain bias.
This one carries no weight with me, as it is well known that Richard Arnold told many, many stories and presented many "facts" at conventions that were utter hogwash.
Actually, most of the comments I am referring to from them came in books which were written and published long after their tenure with Paramount and Star Trek had come to an end, and in which they showed absolutely no reservations about speaking bluntly about their negative feelings concerning other things Paramount did.
Given the different stories coming from the different sides, I am willing to consider that either version could be true, or perhaps that neither version is entirely true. What I'm not willing to do, though, is to say with certainty that any one version of the story is definitively the correct one.
They weren't personal friends, but Bjo does have enough background knowledge of the working of actor contracts to smell a rat. She was very concerned that fans were making up their own minds about the actress and made a point of conveying what she knew of Alley's acceptance of a play as being the best thing for her career at that point.
Exactly. As I said, I heard the Alley/Trimble version first, and no comment since has convinced me it was incorrect. People love to quote the portion "Alley's agent asked for a salary equal to Shatner's" and add "What an ego!". But the wild salary demand was essentially correct. Paramount deliberately offered below her ST II salary - a demotion of sorts, for what ended up to be an even meatier role - the agent counter-demanded, and Paramount never returned with a counter-counter offer. Sadly, the contract specified they only had to make an initial offer, which they fulfilled. Under normal circumstances, when an actress had received critical acclaim, they'd had come back to the agent with a more reasonable offer on a sequel. (And I have read that account in "Starlog" - can't recall who was being interviewed though.)
Perhaps, and many fans agree with you, but since Richard's account was essentially the same as Bjo's, I again was happy enough. I saw Richard at conventions annually and, although his accounts were often very biased towards Roddenberry and rather against the tie-in authors, for example, I didn't hear any accounts that were "total hogwash".
They are hardly going to admit that they helped to oust Alley. By the way, in my interview with Paul Winfield, some months after ST II was in the can, but not yet released theatrically, he intimated that the relationship between Alley and Shatner was rather testy. At the time we fans didn't see it as much of a problem, but it's very important to keep the leading man happy. Another reason for Paramount to rethink the Saavik role? But, again, not something you necessarily want in print, warts and all.
And I only offer up these possibilities when it seems that people are ready to lump it all at Alley's feet. These days, many fans happily write her off as a Scientology kook. I'm sure the truth is a combination of all the rumours, but the ones I have been discussing were around long before the big wheels put their versions into print.
^ Hmm. That could add up to $12 million just for the two of them, and supposedly Kelley made $1 million for that film. That's $13 million in salaries just for the "big three." That seems like an awful lot to be tied up on three salaries for a film whose budget was just over $30 million.
They made about $5 million for STV...from what I recall, they took a small pay cut or redistributed their pay somehow to get the rather low budget STVI movie finished. This was the same movie they couldn't afford to patch up the uniforms so they had to hide them from the camera.
RAMA
Say the casting budget was just below $20 million in total. The rest would easily cover the movie. Many sets were reused, as were uniforms and even some VFX shots.
Having returned from my short sojurn to Iowa, where the Nicholas Meyer papers are held, including production files from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, I can offer a few figures.
According to a June 11, 1990 memo from Ralph Winter (producer) to Teddy Zee (senior VP of production at Paramount at the time) Shatner and Nimoy were each paid $2 million for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. To be specific, the memo (which is discussing the proposed budget of the sixth feature) says, "Nimoy and Shatner at $2.5 M, up from $2 M in the last picture. This is optimistic and I believe will be higher."
Fast forward to a production budget dated April 12, 1991, four days before the film's April 16, 1991 commencement of principal photography. Shatner and Nimoy are the highest paid members of the cast at $1.5 million each, although these are lower than their salaries for the fifth film, as previously noted. As for the others, Kelley was paid $500,000, Doohan was paid $400,000, and all the other regulars from the TV show were paid $275,000 each.
Of course, the $1.5 million each is not the only money that Shatner and Nimoy received. Nimoy collected a $175,000 fee as executive producer, and there are other fees paid out to each actor as well. The production budget says nothing as to any points on the gross the actors may have negotiated in lieu of salary (I suspect this is likely, since they both took pay cuts for the film, but have only my suspicions).
It's also worth noting that the total budget allocated to casting for the film in its entirety is only $5.42 million dollars. The $20 million figure being touted is beyond ridiculous for a $30 million picture of this scope.
According to a June 11, 1990 memo from Ralph Winter (producer) to Teddy Zee (senior VP of production at Paramount at the time) Shatner and Nimoy were each paid $2 million for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. To be specific, the memo (which is discussing the proposed budget of the sixth feature) says, "Nimoy and Shatner at $2.5 M, up from $2 M in the last picture. This is optimistic and I believe will be higher."
Fast forward to a production budget dated April 12, 1991, four days before the film's April 16, 1991 commencement of principal photography. Shatner and Nimoy are the highest paid members of the cast at $1.5 million each, although these are lower than their salaries for the fifth film, as previously noted. As for the others, Kelley was paid $500,000, Doohan was paid $400,000, and all the other regulars from the TV show were paid $275,000 each.
Of course, the $1.5 million each is not the only money that Shatner and Nimoy received. Nimoy collected a $175,000 fee as executive producer, and there are other fees paid out to each actor as well. The production budget says nothing as to any points on the gross the actors may have negotiated in lieu of salary (I suspect this is likely, since they both took pay cuts for the film, but have only my suspicions).
It's also worth noting that the total budget allocated to casting for the film in its entirety is only $5.42 million dollars. The $20 million figure being touted is beyond ridiculous for a $30 million picture of this scope.
No. Not even close.
BTW, in 1991 Bruce Willis was paid 14 million dollars for The Last Boy Scout. The idea that combined Shatner and Nimoy's payout would have approached that of the highest paid film actors in Hollywood is ludicrous on its face.
All extras, it should be pointed out, are paid extras. At least, they should be, if SAG (or whatever labor union was representing extra talent at the time) is doing its job.
And your hypothetical figure of $20 million (only for the cast and extras!) just wouldn't make any sense with a total production budget of $30 million. ILM's fee alone was $4 million. Post-production (editing, music, sound) was another $2.5 million. Now you have $3.5 million to make a movie -- and that's without paying much of the above-the-line talent like the director, the writers, and the producers! A movie that does not make.
And your hypothetical figure of $20 million (only for the cast and extras!) just wouldn't make any sense with a total production budget of $30 million. ILM's fee alone was $4 million. Post-production (editing, music, sound) was another $2.5 million. Now you have $3.5 million to make a movie -- and that's without paying much of the above-the-line talent like the director, the writers, and the producers! A movie that does not make.
Yeah, that's what I was getting at - suggesting that 10 million dollars was enough to make the movie (despite the fact that Paramount was cheaping out as much as possible) is unrealistic.
^ Keep in mind that TFF looked bad primarily because of the visual effects. The cinematography, production design, etc. were all very well done and looked great. And where the visual effects are concerned, TFF didn't look bad because Paramount didn't spend enough money. They looked bad because they used a visual effects company that simply wasn't qualified for the job. So it's not surprising to me that TUC, which went back to ILM for the visual effects, would look far better without costing a boatload more money.
I think Meyer being a more experienced movie director than Shatner helped as well, he knew how to spend wisely to maximise the budget (most obviously chucking out the original opening because as fun as it was it was expensive and wasn't really needed).
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