Five cast members from ABC’s ‘Modern Family’ are suing producers over contract renegotiations. From Charlie Sheen’s infamous ‘Two and a Half Men’ legal saga to the fight that got Suzanne Somers kicked off ‘Three’s Company,’ see the most epic TV contract feuds.
One big happy family? Think again. A routine table read of Modern Family scheduled for Tuesday morning was reportedly delayed at the last minute, as many of the cast members refused to attend. Due to stalled salary negotiations with producer Twentieth Century Fox Television, five actors on the show (Julie Bowen, Sofía Vergara, Ty Burrell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Eric Stonestreet) filed a lawsuit against the company to get out of their current contracts. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the stars are being offered “$150,000 per episode plus a $50,000 per episode bonus for season 4; $200,000 per episode for season 5; $225,000 for season 6; and up to $325,000 for an anticipated season 9,” but the suing cast members are reportedly asking for a significant amount more, including more than double the offered salaries for seasons 8 and 9. Reps for 20th TV have yet to release a statement, but the show averaged about 13 million viewers during its last season, making it a valuable commodity for the network.
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Not surprising to many, Anger Management star Charlie Sheen is notoriously tough to work with. Not only as an actor, but the “winning” star throws a fit if not enough cash is thrown his way. In 2010 Sheen was offered $1 million an episode for two years on Two and a Half Men. But apparently $48 million wouldn’t cut it, not even close—as Vanity Fair reports that Sheen negotiated his contract up to $100 million, more than doubling his base offer, in little more than a single conversation.
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Sopranos actor James Gandolfini was named outstanding actor in a drama series at the 2003 Screen Actors Guild Awards, marking the actor’s potential as a TV moneymaker. When accepting his award, he said, “Maybe there’s some stuff lately that makes me seem ungrateful, but HBO—I’d like to thank you for what you’ve done ... It is a great place to work,” he said. At the time, the star was partaking in a heated contract battle with HBO. He wanted $14 million a year for playing Tony Soprano, but the network wouldn’t offer him more than $11 million. After a public back-and-forth battle, the feud was resolved—with no change in the salary offer.
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After just two seasons as the inseparable group of New York City buds, the cast of Friends decided it was time for a group contract negotiation in 1996, upping their $40,000 an episode salary to $100,000. But that wasn’t quite good enough, and the group continued to push for higher salaries together. By 2000 they were up $750,000 an episode, and just two years later, the gang had each scored a solid $1 million.
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The cast of Jersey Shore may not be able to get through a night out without fights, vomit, hair pulling, or, in some cases, arrests, but they can sure drive a hard bargain. In July 2010, while filming the end of the reality show’s second season (which MTV instead decided to use as the start of the third season, giving the cast members a chance to renegotiate contracts), Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, and the rest of the Jersey Shore cast reportedly demanded a pay bump from $10,000 to $30,000 per episode. And it was only up from there—for Season 5, at least one cast member (Paul “DJ Pauly D” DelVecchio) was reportedly raking in $150,000 per episode.
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Here’s how not to renegotiate a contract. Suzanne Somers, who played bodacious blonde Chrissy Snow on Three’s Company, had starred in the hit sitcom for four seasons at a rate of $30,000 an episode, but abruptly decided she was worth more—five times as more, to be exact, with a 2 percent share of the show’s profits to boot. Producers reportedly rebuffed her $150,000-per-episode demand and offered $35,000 instead (and made sure to point out that the actress repeatedly missed rehearsals). After Somers countered by complaining that her costars were refusing to speak to her, Chrissy’s appearances on the show became increasingly infrequent, and by April 1981, Company’s producers declined to renew the actress’s contract. As for Chrissy, she was exiled to Fresno, Calif., where she cared for her sick mother.
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After his first year playing pint-size Arnold Jackson on Diff’rent Strokes, Gary Coleman was making $1,600 per segment, according to Jet magazine. Contract renegotiations throughout his time on the show from 1978 to 1986 eventually made the actor as much as $100,000 per episode—though it was reported that three quarters of his salary went to his parents, lawyers, advisers, and the IRS.
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Before the start of the third season of NBC’s popular political drama, cast members John Spencer, Richard Schiff, Bradley Whitford, and Allison Janney negotiated raises up to $70,000 per episode, on par with the booty Rob Lowe (who played deputy White House communications director Sam Seaborn) hauled home. The move apparently inspired Lowe to try a renegotiation of his own—though producers rebuffed the actor’s demands, and in response, Lowe left the show halfway through Season 4. “I don’t really know where it began to go wrong,” Lowe later said during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, making sure to point out that “everybody got a raise in succession” except for him. “At the end of the day I said this isn’t right,” he said.
After eight seasons of American Idol, Paula Abdul decided to call it quits. She reportedly believed she wasn’t being paid what she deserved, especially compared to co-judge Simon Cowell and host Ryan Seacrest. At the time, Fox created a nice $30 million annual package for Cowell, while Seacrest was paid $10 million a year. But Abdul made an annual salary of $3.5 million: roughly $2 million for salary and $1.5 million for hair, makeup, wardrobe, and other expenses. In the spring of 2009, Abdul requested a raise of more than $10 million a year. Fox only budged for $5 million. She reportedly felt she was being treated unfairly as a woman. She also felt disrespected by Fox and American Idol producers when jokes were made about Abdul and substance abuse. Ultimately, the former L.A. Lakers girl believed there were bigger and better things in store for her. She went on to judge CBS’s Live to Dance. And following that, she judged the American version of The X Factor, though she left after its first season.
Remember that long delay for Mad Men Season 5? It had to do with negotiations involving the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, in 2011. AMC proposed that the show be cut by two minutes to add commercial time and the cast’s budget be cut to save money. Weiner told The New York Times: “All I want to do is continue to make my show, and make it in the way I want to, with the people I want to make it with.” As the negotiations went on, Weiner ended up quitting. But everything worked out in the end when Weiner came back and signed a three-year deal for $30 million.
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Oh, the Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno mess! Here’s what happened: In 2004 Leno, host of NBC’s The Tonight Show, agreed to let O’Brien take over in five years. When the time came to pass the torch in 2009, Leno had super-high ratings, but was still replaced with O’Brien. And ratings for The Tonight Show plummeted. It is believed that Leno’s jokes are more mainstream, while O’Brien’s are more niche. To hang on to Leno, NBC decided Leno would host a primetime show and O’Brien’s Tonight Show would air a half hour later. O’Brien said, “I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction.” In a desperate plea to get back its ratings, NBC offered O’Brien a $45 million deal—basically to leave the network. Ever since then, he’s hosted the late night talk show Conan on TBS, and Leno has been back on The Tonight Show.
It took nine seasons, until 1998, for the voice actors of The Simpsons to realize something needed to change. Dan Castellaneta (Homer), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Harry Shearer (Principal Skinner), and Hank Azaria (Moe) banded together and demanded raises in their salaries. At the time, the cast had been making between $15,000 and $25,000 an episode. But once the voice actors figured out Fox had made $500 million from the show’s syndication and retailed goods, they demanded $150,000 an episode. The network threatened the cast by saying they would hold voice-actor auditions. Ultimately everyone came to an agreement. Fox kept the voice actors and gave each one $50,000 an episode plus cuts from future syndication money. To this day, The Simpsons is the longest-running scripted show in television history.
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