Slashdot Mirror
Big Bang Actors To Earn $1M Per Episode
Cludge (981852) writes with a snippet from the BBC: "And rich they will be: With The Big Bang Theory commissioned until 2017, the show's three biggest names, Jim Parsons (Sheldon), Johnny Galecki (Leonard) and Kaley Cuoco (Penny) are guaranteed to earn $72m (£42.6m) each over the next three seasons. Unsurprisingly, the cost of producing the sitcom has spiraled." I wonder what that works out per line?
They've made quite clear that Sheldon is paid well by the university, and that he's got piles of un-cashed checks laying around.
Only Penny is ever in need of cash.
considering Miami Vice was pulling these kinds of numbers in the '80s. Granted, it was only for one actor, but still.
Yes, and if you remember, the other lead actor was paid less well because he was rather less white, and he was rather pissed off about it, understandably.
These star actors cost a lot, yes, but they also brought in a lot of money. So I suppose it was, and still is a sound investment.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The Sheldon character holds down a high paying job and manages to interact with an admittedly small circle of friends. He's already doing better than a good segment of the population.
Do you really think that an IRL Sheldon without script immunity would be able to do the same? The TV Sheldon also seems to be a pretty crap physicist, given to conspiracy theories, junk science, and an inability to distinguish between fiction and reality.
Script immunity, reasonable point. Nevertheless...
I personally know a highly paid programmer who believes in witchcraft and astrology. I had a hard time understanding that someone with such a logical mind would believe in something so illogical, but apparently it's more common than one would think. It's what puts the the "quirk" in "quirky", I guess. Otherwise brilliant people who have strange blind spots in areas where you'd think they'd know better. You really don't know anyone like that?
My dad worked with a guy very much like Sheldon. He was brilliant, and so dedicated to his work that he would rarely and only under certain circumstances acknowledge the existence of others. Arguably someone with even more intense quirks than Sheldon. Although admittedly, Dad said that the guy had a "handler", a guy almost as brilliant as him who acted as confidant, kept him out of trouble, and acted as interpreter to the more normal people.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
This is exactly what's great about The Big Bang theory, and especially discussions on Slashdot about it, there are always a bunch of geeks who will sit and say they don't relate to it and it doesn't represent "proper" geeks, all the while completely oblivious to the fact they're sounding exactly like Sheldon hence disproving their own theory that it's not representative. If you sat Sheldon down in front of a show like the Big Bang Theory this is probably exactly what he'd say:
"That wouldn't be my argument against it. My argument is that it's not a good show. I don't find the characters relateable. I don't think it's particularly funny. It seems like someone took a very bland, unoriginal sitcom and attached a geek gimmick to try to make it interesting, but in my mind it fails. It's not interesting, and the geek gimmick doesn't really work. "
It's like a kind of circular ignorance of what makes the show great. I'd say that contrary to your assertion people watching Big Bang Theory exactly understand geeks and nerds, because when they think of Sheldon and what he'd have to say about it, they'd imagine exactly the sort of holier than thou, no true geek (aka no true Scotsman) argument you've made.