Brad Pitt says Hollywood stars earn a pittance

Brad Pitt may have earned an estimated $25 million last year, but he has announced that the days when stars could command huge salaries for film roles are well and truly over. He added: "That arithmetic doesn't really work right now... that deal's not flying these days."

But can that really be true, and how much are the big stars really making now?

Brad made the claims to the BBC. He was asked whether actors could demand $10 million a film at the moment, and replied. "Yeah, that thing died." He added: "It's a really interesting time. A lot of the studios have been challenged because of the economic downturn."

So is this the case?

These things are all relative in Hollywood - where $1 million is hardly enough to pay the pool boy for the year. However, initial pay packets have been coming down. In many cases a huge up-front fee is replaced with a marginally more modest one and a share in the profits the film goes on to make.


This is partly a result of a change in the way the studios make their money. The current model is to make a couple of vast films, with enormous budgets, and bank on box office success. They can then afford to make a few smaller films with smaller budgets out of the profits. It's known as tent-pole, because the blockbusters are holding the rest of the movie business up.

By giving actors a slice of the profits instead of a huge salary, the studios are taking some of the risk away from the model - removing a cost from the production budget, which will only become a cost once the profits rate made and the studio is out of the woods.

Massive pay

However, before we get too tearful at the trauma of lowly-paid Hollywood stars, it's worth bearing in mind the enormous sums some of them are said to have made from canny negotiation on the cut of the profits.

According to Forbes, Tom Cruise was the highest paid movie star of last year, earning $76 million. A large chunk of this was said to have come from a payday based on the profits for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which made well over $700,000.

Actors, directors and producers may all take a chunk of the profits - some even negotiating for a slice of tie-in toy sales. So while Pitt may be right - and the $20 million salaries are harder to come by - the new pay structure should still keep the wolf from the door of their massive mansions around the world and ranks of hired help.

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