Budgets, production costs, and salaries

[Cepstrum]

Hello all. After my last two miserable failures, I'm trying to ask a question that I hope won't incite vitriol.

I've searched quite a bit here and elsewhere for any information about money information for Trek. I'd love to know, eg, how much an episode cost, how budgets were allocated, and the salaries of regulars, guests, and crew.

The only thing I recall reading about this is from Memory Alpha, in which it says Voyager's Caretaker went over budget and cost around $20 million (because of reshooting with Mulgrew).

Is this kind of info available anywhere, or do they keep it secret?Obviously someone had to know about the cost of Caretaker, and if budget info isn't publicly available, I assume that figure came from an interview.

Is that the best we can do? (aside from reading between lines and speculating: I also read Terry Farrel was unsatisfied with the amount offered her to make an appearance in What You Leave Behind..., so he denied them rights to use her in the montage — the producers claimed there simply wasn't enough money available.)

So, *are* there any resources in which we can find *any* data on budgets, costs, and salaries? I believe in the movie business they don't always release accurate figures and can be circumspect. Is the sans true for the Trek series?

Thank you!

 

[Shatnertage]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I don't think your previous threads were failure; they sparked some interesting debate.

As far as the vitriol goes, take it with a grain of salt. People aren't reacting to you the person, just a few sentences that you wrote, and they often have their own axe to grind. Don't let it get you down--this board can be a lot of fun.

 

[LOKAI of CHERON]

The only thing I recall reading about this is from Memory Alpha, in which it says Voyager's Caretaker went over budget and cost around $20 million (because of reshooting with Mulgrew).

Wow, $20 Mill for a Star Trek pilot in the mid 90's! That doesn't ring quite true to me - I'd be shocked if it were anywhere near that figure, even with the Mulgrew re-shoot.

 

[Cepstrum]

The only thing I recall reading about this is from Memory Alpha, in which it says Voyager's Caretaker went over budget and cost around $20 million (because of reshooting with Mulgrew).

Wow, $20 Mill for a Star Trek pilot in the mid 90's! That doesn't ring quite true to me - I'd be shocked if it were anywhere near that figure, even with the Mulgrew re-shoot.

I suspect the $20 million figure represents a lot of fixed costs and not the marginal cost of making that episode. For example, all the startup costs of creating the standing sets, marketing, making the models, paying the headhunters for hiring the production staff, the many auditions, etc. I think that by the end of Caretaker they'd spent $20 million total.


And by the way, shatnertage, thanks for the support!

 

[Cepstrum]

Rats. No one has any info on this?

Btw, sorry for "bumping" this back up. I am just really curious about this!

 

[Therin of Andor]

TV and movie studios use creative accounting. They like to show a loss wherever possible to stop agents inflating actors' worth, but by moving money from one pot to another they can show advertisers that certain shows/movies made huge profits.

Due to studio rivalries, they also don't like to let other studios know exactly how they do their business. Coke and Pepsi don't tell each other the truth either.

There are some "making of..." books about TOS, TNG etc that discuss pilot budgets and salary ranges. As for "Caretaker", are you expecting a pilot to absorb the cost of all standing sets that are used for the next seven years, or - as they certainly did for TNG - do you divide the cost of standing sets by five and charge it to the budgets of the first five years? But TNG wouldn't have got off the ground without a direct-to-video sell-thru plan outside the USA. Sometimes that investment appears in budgets (when they want to show a profit) and other times it's left out (so the show reports a loss). Etc.

Are you prepared to declare your salary to the world? No? Well, why should actors want the world to know what they earned?

 

[JoeD80]

The numbers I've heard over the years off the top of my head are: the original series with ~$500,000 / episode give or take depending on the season; TNG was about $1 mil / episode; DS9 was $1.5 mil /episode and Voyager was $2.2 mil / episode.

With television if you have a budget of $2.2 million per episode what you actually have for a 20-hour season is $44 million dollars to spread however you want. You can spend $20 million on the first episode if you need a lot of big sets and then spread the remaining $24 mil around the remainder of the season. That's how you end up with "bottle shows" where the ship sits around doing nothing while Torres and Janeway discuss how warp particles will solve all their problems. And then you can do something like push off post-production of the last four episodes into the 2nd season and save even more money in the first season that way. So in the end, your season can come out under budget even if your first episode was quite a bit over.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I also read Terry Farrel was unsatisfied with the amount offered her to make an appearance in What You Leave Behind..., so he denied them rights to use her in the montage — the producers claimed there simply wasn't enough money available.)

Not correct, as far as I know. The production accidentally let an audio line from Farrell go to air in an early Season Seven episode without notifying her agent, thus a claim had to be lodged to get her her correct remuneration. Due to this still-in-arbitration legal action, Paramount was not permitted (by union regulation) to even consider using Farrell's image in the final episode montage, even if she wanted them to use it. However, Farrell was at the wrap party when the show ended.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Discussing salaries was usually forbidden at the places I've worked. Causes all sorts of headaches.

 

[indolover]

I'm not sure how much is was per episode, but i do know that filler shows were made to cut down on budgets. I think that was one rationale for Family in TNG, A Man Alone in DS9, or The Visitor in DS9. All followed big budget episodes, either in an FX or make-up prosthetics sense.

 

[Cepstrum]

I also read Terry Farrel was unsatisfied with the amount offered her to make an appearance in What You Leave Behind..., so he denied them rights to use her in the montage — the producers claimed there simply wasn't enough money available.)

Not correct, as far as I know. The production accidentally let an audio line from Farrell go to air in an early Season Seven episode without notifying her agent, thus a claim had to be lodged to get her her correct remuneration. Due to this still-in-arbitration legal action, Paramount was not permitted (by union regulation) to even consider using Farrell's image in the final episode montage, even if she wanted them to use it. However, Farrell was at the wrap party when the show ended.

Thanks for the clarification. I wish I knew how to do multiquotes; I'm going to have to respond with a new post each time.

 

[Cepstrum]

The numbers I've heard over the years off the top of my head are: the original series with ~$500,000 / episode give or take depending on the season; TNG was about $1 mil / episode; DS9 was $1.5 mil /episode and Voyager was $2.2 mil / episode.

With television if you have a budget of $2.2 million per episode what you actually have for a 20-hour season is $44 million dollars to spread however you want. You can spend $20 million on the first episode if you need a lot of big sets and then spread the remaining $24 mil around the remainder of the season. That's how you end up with "bottle shows" where the ship sits around doing nothing while Torres and Janeway discuss how warp particles will solve all their problems. And then you can do something like push off post-production of the last four episodes into the 2nd season and save even more money in the first season that way. So in the end, your season can come out under budget even if your first episode was quite a bit over.

Hey thanks. That ballpark info is actually quite helpful. And I get the part about amortizing the budget across the entire season, hence the (surprisingly often good) bottle shows.

 

[Cepstrum]

TV and movie studios use creative accounting. They like to show a loss wherever possible to stop agents inflating actors' worth, but by moving money from one pot to another they can show advertisers that certain shows/movies made huge profits.

Due to studio rivalries, they also don't like to let other studios know exactly how they do their business. Coke and Pepsi don't tell each other the truth either.

There are some "making of..." books about TOS, TNG etc that discuss pilot budgets and salary ranges. As for "Caretaker", are you expecting a pilot to absorb the cost of all standing sets that are used for the next seven years, or - as they certainly did for TNG - do you divide the cost of standing sets by five and charge it to the budgets of the first five years? But TNG wouldn't have got off the ground without a direct-to-video sell-thru plan outside the USA. Sometimes that investment appears in budgets (when they want to show a profit) and other times it's left out (so the show reports a loss). Etc.

Are you prepared to declare your salary to the world? No? Well, why should actors want the world to know what they earned?

I understand your points here. I was afraid it would be something like this. Oh well. You and others are correct though; salary info is often confidential. Though they *are* public figures. Still, for competitive reasons, I can see why it's hushed up.

 

[Cepstrum]

Discussing salaries was usually forbidden at the places I've worked. Causes all sorts of headaches.

But sometimes they reveal how much celebrities, such as Tom Cruise, make for a movie. Or the Seinfeld cast (I think they made $1 million per episode.) I had thought the same might be true of Trek, but apparently not.

 

[JPRyan]

When it was shooting on film Enterprise cost in the neighborhood of 2.2 mil per show. After the switch to digital in the fourth season the cost dropped to 1.8 mil. The start up costs for the new sets for Enterprise we around 10 mil. Remember, the studio was looking to spread that cost over the projected seven season run of the show. The conventional wisdom on actors contracts was between 13 and 17 thousand per show, except for Scott who was an established property and hence commanded a far bigger price. We never got to the 5 year point where the actors typically reopen contract talks.

 

[JPRyan]

Remember, Kelsey Grammer was getting 1.6 mil per show and Ray Romano was getting 1.8 mil. Heck, even David Hyde Pearce was getting 1 mil per show. Star Trek pay was small potatos.

 

[scotpens]

FWIW, here's the cost breakdown of the second Star Trek pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” taken from The Making of Star Trek. (Remember, we're talking 1965 dollars here.) According to the book, production actually ran $12,000 over budget.

 

[Penta]

Just so people don't have to do it themselves:

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm says that $1 in 1965 dollars is worth $6.93 in 2010 dollars, so the $12,000 over the stated budget equals $83,115.43 in today's terms. That $215,644 for "total costs excluding overages" equals to $1,493,611.96 in 2010 dollars. "Adjusted total costs including overages" of $299,974 equals $2,077,705.63 in 2010 terms. If it went $12k past the "adjusted total costs" in 1965 dollars, thus, that pushes it up to approximately $2.1 million for one episode in 2010 terms.

Pretty expensive, even taking into account the fact of it being a second pilot.

 

[scotpens]

TMOST also says the first season was budgeted at $185,000 per episode, or $1,282,050 in today's money.

 

[Penta]

Whoa, this ep went waaaay over, then. I know pilots are expensive, but why so expensive?