Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been a box office success this Christmas. In the opening weekend alone, the film made an out of this world $529 million globally.
The latest instalment to the saga has undoubtedly revived the Star Wars franchise, and validates Disney’s 2012 purchase of LucasFilm for a reported $4 billion.
However, the cast won’t get a cut of the back-end box office until the gross reaches $1 billion. The reception from new and old fans alike indicates that Disney will certainly reach this target.
So how much did it cost to get Harrison Ford to reprise his role as our favourite Jedi hero Han Solo?
He earnt between $10-$20 million for his epic return to a ‘galaxy far, far away’, according to Hollywood bible Variety. This is as much as 50 times that of his co-stars who held arguably greater roles in the movie.
Ford’s obscenely large payday was perhaps due to his famed character dying at the conclusion of the film. Or perhaps, it was just because well, he is Harrison Ford.
Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher’s income were both significantly lower, although still in the low-seven-figure range.
The true stars of the film, who had the most screen time, John Boyega and Daisy Ridley, only made around $100,000-$300,000. They were new to the Star Wars universe, and thus had less negotiating power.
However, if Hollywood history tells us anything, these debuting talents will certainly be able to navigate higher salaries for the future Star Wars films.
A similar phenomenon occurred with Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan from “Fifty Shades of Grey”, who managed to renegotiate their deals from a six-figure range to a multi-million dollar payday between the first and subsequent movies.
Disney decided in 2014, before casting new roles to create two different pay scales: a ‘legacy pay scale’ for the original cast members such as Ford, Fisher and Hamill, and a general pay scale for new actors, Variety reported.
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