When Moviegoers Take Pay Cuts, It's a Recession. When Movie Stars Take Pay Cuts, It's a Depression.
Via Drudge via The Daily Beast comes news that tough time are spreading to La La Land:
Salaries are being slashed now in Hollywood and even bigger stars are not immune. "Why would anybody pay Julia Roberts $20 million to do Duplicity?" says one producer. "That won't happen again." Indeed, this source says Sony Pictures is ponying up $15 million for Roberts to do Eat, Pray, Love and probably already regrets having committed to pay that much.
What the revolution in technology had started, the economy has hurried right along. After years of impotent promises to choke off rich deals with talent, the studios are finally making it happen. They're hammering on star salaries and perks like private jets, too.
How rough is it getting? The British press is reporting that Jennifer Garner Affleck is reduced to wearing ragged, "credit-crunch" underwear:
It's never a good sign for the world's struggling economy when even a Hollywood star can't buy new underwear.
Spotted picking up her eldest daughter Violet from kindergarten yesterday, it appears the credit crunch had got to Jennifer Garner, after she was spotted showing off a rather holey pair of underwear.
Whole story here. I'm not getting worried reading stories that Mickey Rourke or Scarlett Johannson is only making $400,000 to appear in Iron Man 2. I'll wait until Jennifer Garner is wearing Rustler jeans, Wrangler's down brand.
Where's Hollywood's bailout? Where's my bailout?