How much is Bette Midler making a week?

I heard she's getting paid in Hamilton tickets.

$75,000 per week?



That can't be right. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick were making $100,000 for Producers. Bette has to be making more.

I thought I'd read she was making $100k a week, plus a percentage of the grosses.

Anyone have an idea what the weekly nut of the show is? It hasn't recouped and it's making so much per week.

trpguyy said: "poisonivy2 said: "Anyone have an idea what the weekly nut of the show is? It hasn't recouped and it's making so much per week."

Correction: they haven’t put out a press release saying they recouped. That doesn’t mean they haven’t (and I don’t know if they have or haven’t) — big difference."



Yeah. Rudin doesn't ever announce recoupment when he's lead producer, does he? I can't remember.

BTW -- Midler is making well over $150k / week. Likely closer to around $200k when all is said and done.

Liza's Headband said: "trpguyy said: "poisonivy2 said: "Anyone have an idea what the weekly nut of the show is? It hasn't recouped and it's making so much per week."

Correction: they haven’t put out a press release saying they recouped. That doesn’t mean they haven’t (and I don’t know if they have or haven’t) — big difference."



Yeah. Rudin doesn't ever announce recoupment when he's lead producer, does he? I can't remember.

BTW -- Midler is making well over $150k / week. Likely closer to around $200k when all is said and done."

He announced recoupment for The Book of Mormon, The Humans, Fish in the Dark and The Front Page.

http://www.playbill.com/article/tony-winning-broadway-hit-the-book-of-mormon-recoups-com-185016

http://variety.com/2015/legit/news/fish-in-the-dark-recoup-larry-david-1201501774/

http://variety.com/2016/legit/news/the-humans-recoup-broadway-1201864762/

http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/the-front-page-recoup-broadway-nathan-lane-1201955915/

Phantom of London said: "With the money they have to pay Midler, they don’t have to pay out in advertising."

DOLLY had more advertising that most other shows on Broadway, especially leading up to the Tonys. Probably more than it needed. And tons of full page ads in the New York Times + little ads that would just say things like "IT TAKES A WOMAN" in red. That all adds up.

Bette Midler has always seemed like a very smart cookie to me. When a show charges considerably more than all other shows from the first day that tickets go on sale, only because the star is Bette Midler, I am guessing that she is getting a significant percentage of that overage. When the gross goes down over a million dollars a week when she is out, that provides pretty major evidence that she is single-handedly responsible for the blockbuster status.

With that in mind, I would be very surprised if her contract didn't provide the opportunity for her to gross at least $300K a week from the getgo. If I am off, I will bet she is making more rather than less.

Altering this on 1/10: between them, Lane and Broderick were making $200K between the two of them when the show was grossing (I think) a little more than a million a week. Midler grosses over $2MM, and the gross goes down by more than 50% when she is out. I'll bet she is making closer to $400K than $300K. If she is not, then she is not as smart as I assume she is.

Updated On: 1/10/18 at 10:15 PM

As I said earlier the show has $88m in the till so say the show cost $16m to mount. That would been the show would have $72m in weekly costs.

So the production has run for 42 weeks if you divide by $72m, you would get a weekly cost of $1.71m, say that Bette does earn $350k a week, then you would have in the region of $1.3m to pay the bills, no way would Dolly need $1.3m to pay the bills.

It has recouped. Also in the weekly nut, you don’t need to pay for advertising, as the show is sold out. The earlier advertising was likely to be paid out of the mounting cost.

Phantom of London said: "As I said earlier the show has $88m in the till so say the show cost $16m to mount. That would been the show would have $72m in weekly costs.

So the production has run for 42 weeks if you divide by $72m, you would get a weekly cost of $1.71m, say that Bette does earn $350k a week, then you would have in the region of $1.3m to pay the bills, no way would Dolly need$1.3m to pay the bills.

It has recouped. Also in the weekly nut, you don’t need to pay for advertising, as the show is sold out. The earlier advertising was likely to be paid out of the mounting cost."

I would bet money that Scott Rudin decided not to announce when Dolly returned its investment; either it returned it a long time ago -- like about 6 or 7 months into the run -- or he is not the businessman that I assume he is. No one would produce a musical again if a show like HD ran for a year at the grosses that it has had, and did not returned its investment and a healthy profit to its investors. Even with Midler's salary, it must have made at least a million a week in profits for all the weeks Midler was in itI do not know how that gets distributed between the investors and everyone else; even at 50%, Dolly would have to have returned its investment as well as an excellent profit.

In fairness only time will tell, if a recoupment statement gets issued.

With the Math I provided earlier and said it makes $1.3m a week, this is because of super premiums tickets, it would be madness and the economics of failure to have a show that costs more than $800k a week to run.

Yes Bette Midler is a massive name playing a iconic role, but you can never second guess what sells on Broadway, this could've got cold reviews, Midler performance slated and ended up on TKT's. Think of someone recently who should've shifted a similar amount of tickets and that would be Bruce Willis, a massive movie star on Broadway, what not to like?

With advertising the cost would've been met out of the mounting cost, as the mounting cost is all the costs up until opening night, by opening night, it was clear that Dolly didn't need to advertise anymore, with $39m in the till by then