“I’d have hundreds of millions”: the lucrative role Macaulay Culkin turned down three times
If he was in danger of running low on funds, then you’d imagine that Macaulay Culkin would have been much more prolific as an actor than he has been for the last two decades, and there’s no shame in the Home Alone star continuing to dine out on his signature role.
To be pedantic, it was the sequel that made him obscenely rich. After the first instalment became the highest-grossing comedy in cinema history and turned him into the most famous child actor on the planet, Culkin netted himself a sweet deal to return for the follow-up.
In addition to an upfront salary north of $4million, he was also entitled to 5% of the net profits. When you consider that Lost in New York earned over $350m at the box office, never mind the home video revenue and residuals from how often it plays on TV, he’ll have made an absolute killing.
Culkin also receives a 15% cut on any merchandise, too, so it was a savvy move on the part of the negotiators to effectively set him up for life with one film. He’s gradually become more of a fixture onscreen, amassing nine credits since 2019, as many as he’d played in the previous 15 years combined, but one thing he doesn’t want is a full-time, recurring job.
“They pursued me for The Big Bang Theory, and I said no,” he revealed. “It was kind of like, the way the pitch was, ‘Alright, these two astrophysics nerds, and a pretty girl lives with them. Yoinks!’ That was the pitch. They were like, ‘We’ll get some real physicists to do the math’, but I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m cool, thanks.'”
Refusing to take no for an answer, he was approached again, and the answer was the same: “I said, ‘No, no, no. Again, flattered, but no.'” Knowing there was a lot of money being left on the table, even his manager tried to convince him to play one of the leading roles on the sitcom, but he refused to budge.
While you can state a very strong argument that it was never funny at any point throughout its 12-season and 279-episode run, what can’t be denied is that every principal cast member on The Big Bang Theory got filthy rich. Ahead of the eighth season, the key players were earning at least a million dollars per episode.
Those last four seasons accounted for 96 episodes, so Culkin could have made almost $100m for the final quarter of the show’s run alone, and he knew it. “I’d have hundreds of millions of dollars right now if I did that gig,” he acknowledged. “But at the same time, I’d be bashing my head against the wall.”
For someone who hasn’t been a full-time actor since the mid-1990s, committing to a series that ended up running for a dozen years was never really under consideration, regardless of the ridiculous piles of cash he would have been rewarded with.
