Brian Damage
06-22-2010, 10:51 PM
It’s renegotiations time for the Big Bang gang. The CBS comedy is coming off a red-hot third season and a gigantic off-network syndication deal, putting the cast of the show in a prime position for big salary bumps. Which brings me back to a post I did a month ago titled Is The Big Bang Theory the next Friends? The two comedies share a similar setup: ensemble multi-camera sitcoms about single twentysomethings, the majority of them living in two apartments across the hall; similar ratings strength: Big Bang is now the highest-rated scripted series on TV just like Friends once was; and now the two also share the same time slot, Thursday 8PM, after CBS decided to move Big Bang there in the fall.
Yes, I felt the two comedies had a lot in common… until now. One of the signature moves of the Friends cast was that they negotiated their deals together in an all-for-one, one-for-all fashion, getting to $100,000 per episode each in their first go-around with producer Warner Bros. TV after two seasons and eventually to $1 million per episode. Now, the cast of Big Bang is facing their first salary renegotiation with WBTV following a record-breaking syndication deal for the show, that netted the studio $2+M per episode. But I hear one of the three leads, Jim Parsons, is considering negotiating separately from co-stars Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco.
http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/
Yes, I felt the two comedies had a lot in common… until now. One of the signature moves of the Friends cast was that they negotiated their deals together in an all-for-one, one-for-all fashion, getting to $100,000 per episode each in their first go-around with producer Warner Bros. TV after two seasons and eventually to $1 million per episode. Now, the cast of Big Bang is facing their first salary renegotiation with WBTV following a record-breaking syndication deal for the show, that netted the studio $2+M per episode. But I hear one of the three leads, Jim Parsons, is considering negotiating separately from co-stars Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco.
http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/