California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer
California Profit Participation Film Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson
Profit Participation Agreements
It’s a situation filled with great frustration by both sides as California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson can tell you. Actors want profit participation, while production companies, studios, networks and streaming services feel they need to find ways to limit actor profit participations so they take into account the costs of production.
From the perspective of studios who have seen actor fees and profit participation payouts hitting $75 to $100 million for one actor in a single film, something needs to prevent that from happening. From actors’ perspectives, those numbers look great.
Actors have been known to get from 2.5% to 15% for a well-known celebrity working for scale or substantially below his or her normal fee or his or her quote, but sometimes that’s in addition to a $20 million fee.
Sandra Bullock reportedly earned over $70 million (after more money has been made by the film, it’s now been calculated her amount is closer to $77 million) for her role in Gravity due to her rare “first dollar” gross deal for the film. Her deal, $20 million upfront against 15 percent of first-dollar gross.
However, it’s not necessary for an actor to obtain a first-dollar gross deal to have a huge payday.
Alec Guinness’s deal for the Star Wars franchise reportedly allowed him 2% of George Lucas’ gross royalties along with other royalties and is said to have earned him 56 million pounds. In 1977 when the first Star Wars film was released, the pound was worth $1.86.
Keanu Reeves per-cent profit share from the Matrix films reportedly net him 70 million pounds. However, in a great act of generosity, he gave reportedly gave 50 million pounds of his payday to the film’s behind-the-scenes team.
Harrison Ford’s profit-share for acting in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull allowed him to take home a huge $65 million paycheck.
Leonardo DiCaprio, however, chose to take a first-dollar gross deal for Inception which turned out to be a wise move netting him an estimated $60 million plus payday.
The best deal of all for an actor, however, is if an A-list actor can take a typical $20 million salary and a good percentage of the gross profits as Will Smith did for Men in Black 3 which earned him a reported $100 million payday.
More recently, in return for buying out the “back end” of three major stars in the upcoming production currently called Red Notice, Netflix is paying Gal Godot, Ryan Reynolds and Dwayne Johnson $20 million each and even more for Dwayne Johnson as he is also the film’s primary producer.
That’s more than actors normally receive for a streaming service production, but could they have earned more if the film had a theatrical release and they had a profit participation? Almost assuredly, but $20 million is still $20 million. And if the film is a success, it can lead to even better paying roles for streaming services.
California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson, the Right Choice
California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson has been called “Brilliant” and “A Legend” and is a cum laude graduate of UCLA. California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson has law degrees both from the University of San Diego School of Law and from Cardiff University in Wales where he graduated magna cum laude.
With these dual law degrees in the U.S. and Great Britain, and over 40 years of combined experience both in London and California, California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson is the international entertainment lawyer to turn to for music events, festivals and world tours, music, film, television, songwriting, film music licensing, film and TV production agreements, publishing, modeling, athlete representation, and other creative aspects of the entertainment industry in the U.S., the UK and around the world.
Choosing California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson
Focused on bringing great film projects to UK film producers who recognize the unique voice of British actors, directors and crews and as a California entertainment powerhouse working with actors, musicians, songwriters, novelists, models and athletes from offices just near enough to Hollywood but far enough from the congestion of LA, California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson is the right choice and the law firm to choose for all your entertainment endeavours from California to the UK and throughout the world.
California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson has been named one of the 2022 Top Lawyers by the prestigious Palm Springs Life Magazine for the past 12 years in a row and is one of the most acclaimed lawyers in the Coachella Valley of California. California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson has written for the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal Newspapers, is a published novelist and wrote and recorded the music and lyrics for the musical, Shake in London. California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson also has a top rating of “Superb” by Avvo, their highest rating, which rates attorneys all across the U.S.
Gross Profits vs. Net Profits
There are gross profits which are a total amount of revenue earned by the film, and net profits which is what’s left over from gross profits after deductions have been made. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple and no actor worth their salt today agrees to a profit participation based on net profits. Even gross profits can be defined a number of ways, and each of those ways is different from a first-dollar gross deal.
Net points, which are what’s left over after expenses, have been called “monkey points,” a term reportedly coined by Eddie Murphy. A number of actors, including Lynda Carter and Eddie Murphy have stated in effect, that anyone who accepts or settles for net points in their contract, is a fool. It’s also been said these are about as valuable as the beads people collect at mardi gras. Everyone covets them, but they won’t even get you a drink in the big easy.
Gross profits can refer to the total amount of money the film makes, but it can also refer to the total amount of money an entity takes in or the total amount of money a film takes in. However, since exhibitors take a chunk of the film’s box office, gross can refer to the amount of money the distributor receives, i.e. the distributor’s gross. Or the term can be modified any number of ways, and then modified even further in a rider to a profit participation agreement.
Net profits can also mean many different things. Depending on how they are defined in the agreement, net profits can mean anything from what’s left over after the distributor takes their fee or their fee and all their costs, to only what’s left after all actual costs are recouped, money is set aside for future costs, and everyone else gets paid. The definition of net profits may also refer to the producer’s net or some other net and the items deducted before arriving at that net is what an attorney must examine extremely closely and negotiate if a net profit deal is even acceptable in the first place to a profit participant.
Other Terms Used In Actor Agreements
There are terms in such contracts as Adjusted Defined Receipts, Adjusted Gross Receipts, Modified Adjusted Gross Receipts, and others. Equally important is what constitutes the word, “receipts” includes, and what the territory of the receipts covers.
By utilizing creative accounting methods, and very often even without utilizing questionable practices, a film can have box office receipts of hundreds of millions of dollars and still be said to have never gone into profit.
Partial Solutions to Previous Profit Participation Issues
One way for actors to ensure they get paid is to insert fixed payment requirements in an actor’s agreement that are due at certain and well-defined benchmarks. Box office bonuses are a good way to accomplish getting an actor paid. Box office receipts can be verified from a number of sources, yet these payments are still often delayed for long periods of time.
Awards bonuses are another way to provide for bonus payments. And they don’t need to be based on winning an award. A nomination bonus is equally useful. A bonus paid on obtaining distribution, on release of the film, on a television series being renewed, are just some ways to draft an agreement bonus. Attorneys who represent athletes are masters at providing bonus payments for their clients. Lose weight, get a bonus. Gain weight, get a bonus.
Hollywood Litigation Over Profits
Hollywood is well known for stories involving films which generated huge box office receipts, which after everything was added up, still allegedly failed to turn a profit. Among the films which have had good box office receipts but later wound up in litigation over profit participation issues, are the films Coming to America, Batman, JFK, Spider-Man, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Lord of the Rings, Farenheit 9/11. The Bones TV series even wound up in litigation over missing profits.
Making the Right Choice – California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson
From Malibu to San Diego where California entertainment attorney Sebastian Gibson graduated from the University of San Diego School of Law, to his current offices in the Palm Springs area and Newport Beach to London where he has practiced law extensively, California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson is the right choice for all your entertainment film and television productions, projects in development and film and TV agreements for productions in the U.S., the UK and around the world.
With offices in the Palm Springs area where Live Nation will be opening a new arena in 2021 to Palm Desert to the eastern portion of the Coachella Valley where AEG subsidiary Goldenvoice produces the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and the Stagecoach Music Festival, Sebastian Gibson is the Coachella Valley’s premier entertainment law firm.
You Need California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson
The law firm of California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson not only has Southern California covered, from Palm Springs to Orange County, but we have the world covered as well from London where some of the finest films and television series continue to be produced.
For many years one of the world’s most iconic entertainment law firms for modeling and publishing, representing models and writers throughout the world, California Film Profit Participation Actor Agreement Lawyer Sebastian Gibson is on track to becoming one of the world’s leading law firms for music, film, television, theater and worldwide entertainment events in addition to its expertise in the fields of modeling and publishing.
