Tom Cruise’s First Taste of $100M Salary Happened by Bending 1 Traditional Hollywood Rule That Has Now Become the Norm
Knowing your worth is very important in any profession. Nobody wants to be underpaid for their work and definitely wants to be on an upward trajectory, both growth and compensation-wise. In Hollywood, while it is traditional for actors and filmmakers to charge a fixed fee for their role in a project, some actors are now adopting a different approach and eyeing a bigger slice of the pie.
Tom Cruise’s First $100M Salary
For the movie War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise didn’t just get the opportunity to work with Steven Spielberg, but also got the taste of earning a whopping $100 million for his role. The Paramount movie was a remake of the classic science fiction flick and starred Tom Cruise in the lead role along with Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin.
In a traditional sense, Cruise was set to earn a fee of $20 million for his role. However, he saw the potential of the movie to be a blockbuster and instead chose to gamble on the success of the movie. He made a deal to take a cut of the ticket sales of War of the Worlds. If the movie tanks, so does Cruise’s fee. So, this was a risky bet that could have left Cruise with nothing. However, the movie did exceptionally well and collected over $600 million at the box office and Cruise earned $100 million subsequently.
Since then, Cruise has been making mindful decisions to determine his salary and put a stamp on his worth. He has been consistently featured in the Forbes list of highest-earning actors owing to the success of his movies and his unparalleled stature in the industry. People have been so curious about the star’s net worth that a website called Casumo analyzed how much Cruise earned per dialogue which came up to $7000. Imagine the money he earns for being the lead actor with the most dialogues!
Other Actors to Follow Suit
Tom Cruise paved the path for many other actors who chose to bet on themselves and their skills that can skyrocket a movie’s success. Letting go of the usual standard fee, actors like Sam Worthington for Avatar, Will Smith for Men in Black 3, and Sandra Bullock for Gravity took a percentage of the ticket sales to consolidate their belief that the movies will do well.
Moreover, this tactic has been adopted by bigger studios to compensate for casting huge stars in smaller-budget movies. They offer the actors a chunk of the profits rather than paying a huge amount upfront. For Terminator 3, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a contract that spanned 33 pages and outlined the terms of his compensation concerning gross profit share. A huge credit of actors getting their fair share goes to their lawyers who ensure their client gets paid adequately and not get duped.
