From the moment Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire said goodbye to Spider-man, it’s been known that Sony has been looking at ways to bring down the cost of making the superhero movies, but even so paying the lead actor only $500,000, which Deadline is reporting Andrew Garfield is getting, is relative peanuts in Hollywood terms.
However it seems they’re going on the Marvel Studios logic, which is that playing a major superhero is so coveted by young actors that a studio can play hardball, and by giving the role to a relative unknown, the actor may get little for the comic book movie, but they’re given a massive springboard to asking for millions for other roles – which means it’s certainly worth their while.
It’s little wonder Sony wants to bring the costs down, as despite their success, Spider-man has become increasingly less profitable for the studio, which is perhaps why they weren’t distraught when Raimi and Maguire walked away. While (according to /Film) Tobey only got $4 million for the first film, that had risen to $17.5 million plus 5% of the gross by the second, while he was supposed to get $20 million plus backend for a fourth Spidey film. With Raimi likely to be around the same price, the films were getting exorbitantly expensive, with backend deals meaning Sony had a shrinking amount of the overall gross to claw its money back.
So they’re going back to basics, with a little known star and far cheaper director (Marc Webb) and reports they want this one to be budgeted around $80 million, which is nothing for a superhero flick. Currently Garfield has sequel options in his contract, which is that he’ll get a $1 million for the first sequel and $2 million for a second, although if the first rebooted film is a success, there’s little doubt he’ll try and renegotiate that.