As big-budget streaming deals continue to dominate the entertainment landscape, TV star salaries are being driven up to new heights.
According to a report from Variety, this has proven to be a big boon for many actors — especially Chris Pratt, who has earned bragging rights as television’s highest-paid star, thanks to his $1.4 million-per-episode salary for upcoming Amazon Prime Video series “The Terminal List”.
In order to stay competitive, premium cable outlets have been forced to keep up with streamers’ willingness to pay movie-appropriate money to A-list movie stars, resulting in Kate Winslet raking in $650,000 an episode for her HBO detective drama “Mare of Easttown”.
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“You’re seeing a lot of pressure at Apple, Amazon, Hulu, to cast these major names and their shows, and for that they’re willing to spend a ton of money,” a talent rep tells Variety. “It all depends on how much leverage you have and how badly they need you.”
However, what has proven to be a bounty for those at the top of the Hollywood food chain has had the exact opposite effect for mid-level actors, as the bulk of a project’s budget flows to the actors “on the top of the call sheet” and results in diminishing returns for those on the lower rungs. “They’re paying the top one, maybe two or three names in the sheet, and everybody else sort of is scraping by,” reveals an agent.
This phenomenon has also benefited stars who, regardless of individual star power, can also command massive deals when attached to coveted projects. For example, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon are each being paid a reported $650,000 an episode for HBO Max’s upcoming “Sex and the City” revival, “And Just Like That…”
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Other big earners include Jeff Bridges, earning a reported $1 million an episode for his upcoming series “The Old Man”; Bryan Cranston, who will be raking in $750K an episode for the second season of “Your Honor”; “Only Murders in the Building” stars Steve Martin and Martin Short, paid $600,000 an episode; all three actresses in Showtime’s upcoming anthology series “The First Lady”, with Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Gillian Anderson each earning $600K an episode; and Alec Baldwin, who received $575,000 an episode for “Dr. Death”.
Courtesy of Variety, below is the outlet’s list of television’s biggest salaries:
