I have to question at what point will a few of them price themselves right out of the market, especially the ones who are little more than eye candy. I don't think any major movie star (certainly not the long-term stars) have a "one size fits all" salary.
Many of them, if they like a project enough and believe in it (and believe they will "grow" from it and perhaps be "awarded" for it), will work for SAG scale or not much more. But if it's a summer blockbuster with a large budget, they expect to be paid their usual (big star) salaries.
Yet the ticket prices at the box office are exactly the same, regardless.
It's the same thing we bitch about on the Main Board---how a show with eight musicians and a cast of six on a bare stage can charge the same price as Wicked or Lion King.
My answer to that is we would never see smaller projects then. They don't bring in the masses like a blockbuster (ever), so if ticket prices were lowered across the board for the smaller films or stage shows, they would all lose money. Every single one of them. And that would be the end of that.
I will say this about the "summer blockbuster" ...
The studios call these "tentpole" movies. That's the giant rod (no pun intended) that holds the rest of their offerings up. Studios need "tentpole" films so they can afford to release a "Zero Dark Thirty" or a "Silver Linings Playbook" or "Tree of Life." They need "The Avengers" and "Iron Man 9" to throw some cash in the flow.
If they take the "pole" away, to stay with their own industry metaphor, the entire tent would collapse.
And my answer to that is ... then maybe it ought to.
Like I said (much earlier), it's time for a reinvention of the way things work. It's already started, whether they like it or not (just as Spielberg says).
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
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