The movie Denzel Washington took a 90% pay cut to make: “You do the math”
There are clear and obvious differences between being an actor and a movie star, but not many have kept one foot in each world for as long or as consistently as Denzel Washington, making him arguably the industry’s most valuable double threat.
Undoubtedly one of America’s greatest-ever actors, Washington has two Academy Award wins from ten nominations to go along with the rest of his accolades, and he’s spent decades displaying range, versatility, depth, and gravitas that puts the majority of his peers to shame.
On the other hand, he’s also one of cinema’s most bankable action heroes. Put Washington in the lead role of a hard-boiled thriller where he’s allowed to kick ass and take names with that signature twinkle in his eyes, and it’s virtually guaranteed that audiences are going to show up in their droves to propel the film towards the top of the box office.
Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand, and Daniel Day-Lewis may have won more Oscars, but could any of them headline The Equalizer trilogy? Absolutely not. Washington is that rarest of things: a generation talent who’s also an unqualified draw among the moviegoing public, which is why he’s also one of Tinseltown’s highest-paid names.
Regularly commanding a salary of $20million and above, Washington was so confident in his own worth that he walked away from Unstoppable because the studio told him he needed to take a pay cut. He refused, director Tony Scott refused to make the movie without him, and the leading man eventually got the financial package he wanted.
It doesn’t always have to boil down to an ultimatum, though, after Washington willingly sacrificed 90% of his usual fee because he was so sold on the material. John Travolta may have turned down the lead after the experienced pilot found the narrative to be too far-fetched for his liking, but his replacement had no issues embodying daredevil aviator and raging alcoholic Whip Whitaker in Robert Zemeckis’ Flight.
The filmmaker had grown accustomed to extravagant budgets, and his star had spent years hoovering up eight-figure paydays, but Paramount wasn’t willing to stretch itself. The drama was given a relatively thrifty budget, necessitating the two key creatives to walk home with much less than they were used to.
“It was not a struggle to get it made, but the studio wanted to do it for a price, and we ended up with $28million,” Washington told Variety. “Robert Zemeckis made it look like $100m, especially the plane sequence. So he and I threw our money back into the pot, took a tenth of our salaries. It’s a tenth of my salary. You do the math.”
In favour of giving up tens of millions of dollars, Washington structured his deal so that he would make money on the backend should Flight turn out to be a hit. Considering it recouped its production costs more than five times over from cinemas and earned him a ‘Best Actor’ nomination, he probably did more than alright out of it in the end.
