2020 won

Just a note to myself in case I ever have a reason to write about Star Wars again.  I know, I know, that's not very likely but you never know:

I just ran into an article listing tidbits of the One, True Trilogy.  For some reason, what stood out were the dollar figures given to Harrison Ford for each appearance.  They're very basic numbers so I'm skeptical but it's a place to start.

$10,000 for bringing the world Han Solo.  It's in 1977 money but that's still a lot more than many people make even now.  Of course it was never expected to be a hit and he wasn't remotely a star so that was probably a decent paycheck for the work.  He also got, and I have no idea how he pulled this off, .5% of the ticket sales.  Wouldn't surprise me if that was technically more than George Lucas made.  Alec Guinness got a percentage and James Earl Jones refused a percentage, did anybody else have the slightest chance of making that much?

I'm surprised to look this up, he'd actually made at least a dozen tv appearances and Star Wars was his seventh movie.  He got $100,000 for Empire Strikes Back, obviously a natural increase.  It was filming this movie that Lucas and Spielberg decided to hire him as Indiana Jones.

So with that, he had three massive hit movies under his belt.  He got $500,000 for Return of the Jedi.  I can't find any record on him getting any percentages - well he did for Indy - but that could go either way.  Having the up-front money would deny him the profits but no-one had the slightest idea there would be any.  Sequels were not as popular as the original movies, that was a given.  Taking the percentage could also require a lot of extra work just to keep track of the percentage.

Then he gets $20 million for appearing in The Force Awakens.  Who knows, maybe even a percentage.  It's tough to think of a movie where the actor has more strengths in making demands.  The character can't be replaced and neither can the actor.  Wikipedia says it was $25 million + .5% of the revenue.

I do assume that for that much money, Ford had to go through all the tedious business aspects, showing up at every convention, interviews, if Han appeared in a video game, he'd have to do the vocals.  I also assume that the sequels were included in the contract, hence his appearance in the final movie.  They couldn't have given him another $20 million+ just for that.

I guess that's enough for now.  I've been thinking of other stuff to write but I'm still not sure I have the words.  Maybe later.