So I gather the issue has been resolved?
I don’t take your back end comment as any knock at all. And as I said, I’m brand new to the industry but I’m not sure if I mentioned my background. I am coming from an accounting and financial services background. I have been glutton for anything I can learn and my boss has been in the industry for over 40 years. He’s doing a great job of teaching me. I mention this because I’ve read everywhere that backend is typically illusive.
My boss still seems very optimistic that our picture will have a large backend and I think that his attitude is an appropriate one, although maybe some would argue not realistic.
By appropriate, I mean that I don’t think he’d have choosen this particular project now, if he did not have a HUGE amount of faith in its commercial potential.
I’m not in my office rn but am going to try to answer some of your questions, if I miss any, I’ll circle back later.
I like this actor’s agent very much, he has been a very straight shooter with me and easy to work with. That said, all I did was line him up and shoot him into my boss and his attorneys where I think we saw, he’s also good at what he does and going to bat for his talent.
My boss ultimately did not disclose anyone else’s rates. IMHO my boss is a really nice guy but I think if you only knew him through work, you’d likely describe him as shrewd but fair. He has been the talent and he has, as he calls it, “worked for free” - backend deals that never paid out. So from the beginning he told me, we would never do that. So I think he is not just sensitive to what one actor wants (to be paid and paid what he is worth) but to what any actor wants (to work on a set where the cast gets along and knows their interests are considered).
Instead of opening up our books, which we honestly can’t even do yet 100% because we are still adding crew and talent (and this is a big cast) my boss worked closely with the actor’s agent to reassure him that he was being top billed and receiving all of the perks that go along with that. Plus, the lawyers did draft an MFN contract (not even sure I’m using this term in the proper context). And I’m told the agent is now ready to have his actor sign off.