Howard: Bruce Willis's $6M Die Hard salary upended Imagine's production budget model
Ron Howard · Ron Howard: Evolve your vision | Masters of Scale · Aug 17, 2023 · at 18:25
Filmmaker and Imagine Entertainment co-founder Ron Howard discusses the Hollywood market shock that disrupted Imagine's original business plan after going public.
0:00 / 0:29exact quote · 29.1s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Bruce Willis was given six million dollars to star in Die Hard. He was a TV star. When this TV guy leapt to that number, every A-list actor in Hollywood jumped to that number or more. And our model no longer held up, because we were supposed to make movies for a certain number, yet the studio wanted us to get the best actors of our generation, the best stars, to be in these movies.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Ron Howard
Howard: Bruce Willis's $6M Die Hard deal permanently raised A-list actor pay
“Bruce Willis was given six million dollars to star in Die Hard. He was a TV star. When this TV guy leapt to that number, every A-list actor in Hollywood jumped to that number or more.”
Howard: Pop.com failed due to immature tech and traditional production methods
“The tech really wasn't quite there. It limited some of what we could do in terms of the shooting, made it also more expensive. We really approached it in too traditional of a way. We didn't lean heavily on independently generated content.”
Howard: Shows like Squid Game taught viewers to embrace subtitles
“Squid Game, Narcos, these shows are big hits, and they've taught people the cultural value of actually allowing yourself to hear people act in their own voices and in their own language.”
Howard: Imagine used IPO funds to retain syndication and home video rights
“We immediately had a pool of money to work with, to control our own development, to invest in the films, with the idea that we would maintain the rights to syndication, burgeoning video cassettes, and so forth.”