Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson are reportedly looking for
major raises for the Fifty Shades
sequels, but they shouldn’t bank on it — especially if producer Dana Brunetti
has anything to say about the matter.
Brunetti told The Hollywood Rerporter, "Look, when I was starting out and had to cut my teeth and build my résumé to
get in, I had to basically work for free on a lot of things. I still take
reductions in my fees for the opportunities to do certain things. We got slack
on Captain Phillips about how much
Barkhad [Abdi] and those guys got paid. Look at Jonah Hill in Wolf of Wall Street. It was great for
his career. So I'm not going to cry for anybody who wants to be in this
business just because a thing they were involved in did very well and they
didn't get paid [a lot]. That's not the deal that you made. If it was, I'd have
more than a couple Ferraris because all the money my films have made is f—ing
insane. You've got to start somewhere." (Hill received $60,000 for his role in Wall Street, the "minimum wage" for SAG, just so he could work with
Martin Scorsese; however, it’s not clear if he had any back-end deals in place
that would mitigate the loss. It did net him an Oscar nomination, so there's that.)
Some of the Twilight
stars attempted to renegotiate their salaries after their three-movie deals
were up. Legal documents reveal that Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and
other stars received retroactive bonuses, so perhaps there's hope for Dornan
and Johnson yet. Given the brouhaha over the stars' commitment to and feelings
about the film, and the reportedly tumultuous relationship between E.L. James
and director Sam Taylor-Johnson, this could be a power play to try and get
everyone on board for Fifty Shades Darker. (E! Online)