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Sony hack: Staff comments reveal how much they hate Adam Sandler – who joins Drew Barrymore, Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise in Forbes’ Most Overpaid Hollywood Actors list 2014
Sony Pictures Entertainment employees are really annoyed that Adam Sandler gets paid so much.
The media giant was hacked last week and those responsible – rumoured to be working for North Korea, though this has been denied – have dumped a load of information ranging from the pay of some of its stars to staff social security numbers.
US blog Gawker has trawled through some of the information and today published a list of negative comments made by employees, which were found in “a plain, unencrypted, text file innocuously titled Sony_2012_Comments”.
Within that the Happy Gilmore and Wedding Singer star appears to come in for a lot of flack.
There is a general "blah-ness" to the films we produce. Althought we manage to produce an innovative film once in awhile, Social Network, Moneyball, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we continue to be saddled with the mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films. Let's raise the bar a little on the films we produce, and inspire employees that they are working on the next Social Network. That said, there's a strange dichotomy of encouraging us to be fiscally responsible, but then upper management allows certain talent and filmmakers to bleed us dry with their outlandish requests for private jets, wardrobe and grooming stylists- and are surprised when they are asked to work more than 5 hours to promote their film.
In TV and Theatrical, I hope management looks closely at the money spent on development and term deals to ensure efficiency. There are a lot of term deal personnel as well as creative personnel, yet we only release a dozen or so Columbia Pictures a year, for example. And will we still be paying for Adam Sandler? Why?
It is commenable that SPE understands/supports the importance of risk-taking, particularly in how the we pick films to greenlight. However, the studio needs to change deal structure that has been in place with Happy Madison, as this arrangement has disproportionately benefitted Adam Sandler and his team, relative to SPE.
Actually it seems Sandler is notoriously overpaid. Last year he topped Forbes' list of most overpaid actors in Hollywood, with the magazine claiming that for every one dollar he was paid, the film made just $3.40 back.
This year is not so bad – the average has risen to $5.20 – but he is still in the top 10 (seven to be precise). His 50 First Dates co-star Drew Barrymore has taken the top spot for 2014. Apparently for every dollar she receives, the film makes just 40 cents.
Here's Forbes' Most Overpaid Hollywood Actors list for 2014.
And the list in full:
1. Drew Barrymore ($1 = 40c)
2. Eddie Murphy ($1 = $2.70)
3. Will Ferrell ($1 = $3.50)
4. Reese Witherspoon ($1 = $3.55)
5. Denzel Washington ($1=$4.25)
6. Nicholas Cage ($1= $4.40)
7. Adam Sandler ($1 = $5.20)
8. Vince Vaughn ($1 = $5.20)
9. Tom Cruise ($1 = $6.35)
10. Nicole Kidman ($1 = $6.70)