Michael Douglas, who stars in USA Films’ current release “Traffic,” has high praise for director Steven Soderbergh, who shot the film himself with a hand-held 35-mm camera, garnering an additional paycheck as cameraman.
Soderbergh also knows how to save money for a studio. “I was given a budget of $51 million but actually delivered it for $49 million, then I realized the contingency money hadn’t been used, which bottom-lined it for $46 million,” he says.
Soderbergh’s next major project (with a February start date) is the “Ocean’s 11” rat-pack remake with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon and others. Soderbergh had wanted Mark Wahlberg, currently one of the most sought-after actors in town, but Wahlberg couldn’t break free of his back-to-back projects. Among them are Tim Burton’s re-make of “Planet of the Apes,” “Rock Star,” and “Out On My Feet” with Robert DeNiro.
Wahlberg’s per-picture price tag has jumped from the $4 million-to-$5 million range to $8 million for “Planet of the Apes,” at least partially reflecting his recent success in “The Perfect Storm” and last year’s “Three Kings.” The former grossed $182.6 million in 23 weeks at the box office, and “Three Kings” grossed $60.7 million at the box office.
“For popcorn movies with big box-office projections, stars will get more like Wahlberg or Cameron Diaz, whose usual fee is $5 million, but she got $12 million for ‘Charlie’s Angels,'” says Alan Robert, an analyst at Reel Source Inc.
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Tracking the neck-and-neck careers of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon shows that Damon seems to be emerging as the winner, according to some industry observers.
“Although Affleck seems to be everywhere,” says Randy Usher, a freelance film analyst, “it was ‘Good Will Hunting’ that elevated Damon to the A-list, continuing with him starring in quality projects including ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley,’ ‘Rainmaker,’ the soon-to-be-released ‘All The Pretty Horses,’ Warner’s $75million 2001 release ‘The Bourne Identity’ (first of a trilogy) and even in spite of ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance,’ which bombed.”
“Bagger” has indeed been a dud, generating a mere $29.7 million at the box-office in its first five weeks of release.
Nonetheless, Damon gets $10 million per film, while his buddy Affleck garners less than $2 million.
The most logical reason is that Affleck has suffered more bombs, including the recently released “Bounce” ($30 million in three weeks) and “Reindeer Games,” with only $23 million.
Maybe Affleck can improve on that track record with his 2001 mega war movie “Pearl Harbor,” in which he co-stars with Christian Slater.
All those stars might be considered long in the tooth, since the hottest stars ruling the box office these days are all under 25.
“They have short shelf lives, though,” says Curtis Allen, a box-office expert at movies.com.
Contributing reporter Anita Talbert can be reached at [email protected].
