By anyone’s standards, Gravity’s been an incredible success. It’s gotten ten Oscar nominations, it’s pushed FX technology to incredible new heights, and it’s also been a huge success for Imax. In addition, it could also be a big financial windfall for Sandra Bullock who stands to make a whopping $70 million.
As the Hollywood Reporter tells us, Bullock has a “first dollar gross” deal, which means that once she earns back the $20 million she already got paid for her actress fee, she will get 15% of what Warner Brothers makes back on Gravity. And according to Reporter estimates, this could add up to $70 million.
Gravity has currently made over $700 million worldwide, and could reach $750 million very soon. After the Academy Awards, the film should also rake in even more money in theaters and on home video.
Apparently these kinds of deals are rare in today’s Hollywood, especially with today’s movie economics. We’re relying more and more on the box office in China for movies to break even, let alone make a profit, and the studios aren’t nuts about stars like Robert Downey Jr. making enormous piles of money off The Avengers and Iron Man films.
Still, we also know that Hollywood loves to employ what you could call “creative accounting,” and back end deals are often called “the monkey points,” a term invented by Eddie Murphy, because they don’t add up to anything. So it’s nice to see an actor actually getting paid when a movie does well, and Gravity made enough money that apparently the studio can’t pretend it hasn’t made a profit.
