Star Wars’ Harrison Ford was paid 50x more than newcomers, John Boyega and Daisy Ridley.
After making over $500 million in the box office, Star Wars will definitely be able to pay their cast members a lot more money. But, how much money did The Force Awakens cast earn to star in the latest Star Wars movie?
According to sources close to Variety, Harrison Ford earned the most money. In fact, sources reveal the actor received $10 to $20 million to reprise his role of Han Solo in the movie. This is substantially higher than his co-stars. In fact, Variety reports Mark Hamill and Carrie fisher made low-seven figures and the newcomers, John Boyega and Daisy Ridley were only paid between $100k to $300k to star in the movie.
Surprisingly Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac were able to negotiate a higher pay due to their previous acting experiences.
Because Driver and Isaac had fixed quotes from previous film and TV work, sources say their deals were negotiated higher compared to Boyega and Ridley, who, for the most part, had never appeared in a large-scale film before.
And while there are rumors suggesting why Harrison Ford was paid more, it still demonstrates how Hollywood has the tendency to pay low wages to newer actors, especially with so many negotiations involve back-end box office bonus checks. In fact, the first Fifty Shades of Grey, the movie stars Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan received six figures and later renegotiated into a multi-million dollar contract for sequels.