The worst possible take on the actors’ strike is that it’s whiny millionaires demanding more money, which couldn’t be further from the truth when the stars of some of TV’s biggest hits are revealing they’ve literally been earning pennies in residuals. Of course, the biggest stars are always going to land the biggest paychecks, with Dwayne Johnson once again said to be leading the charge.
The actor and producer has been named as the highest-paid star in the industry on more than one occasion, but a new report from Puck News claims that The Rock has only gone and set a brand new industry-wide record for the single largest payday ever handed out upfront for a feature film.
Prime Video’s festive action comedy Red One releases this coming holiday season and has already been touted as the first installment in an entire shared universe focusing on the most wonderful time of the year, so how does Johnson claim his usual slice of the pie when there’s no profit participation or back-end deals on the table?
As it turns out, the answer is quite simple; he purportedly gets paid $50 million right out of the gate, no questions asked. Based on recent history – or pretty much his entire filmography for the last decade plus – we can infer that Red One will be an action-packed and effects-heavy blockbuster that’s greeted tepidly by critics, but finds itself adored by its target audience, and it’ll no doubt end up as one of Prime Video’s biggest-ever hits.
Is it worth paying a single actor $50 million, though? That’s an entirely different question, and one that could open up a serious can of worms. Obviously, it’s not Johnson’s fault that Amazon is willing to stump up such vast sums for his services, nor is it a brazen deal being made in the midst of a strike when Red One was first announced in late 2021, but the timing of the report is far from ideal given the circumstances, especially when streaming payments, royalties, and residuals are proving to be a key part of the debate.