With all of the hype surrounding the release of “The Hunger Games” on March 23, it’s not hard to imagine that the movie’s stars will soon join the red-carpet ranks of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Kristen Stewart, and Robert Pattinson.
The only thing is, if Josh Hutcherson Jennifer Lawrence, and Liam Hemsworth do burst forth as Hollywood’s newest A-listers, they’ll still be earning a pauper’s pay compared to their contemporaries if the Lionsgate Entertainment Corp. decides to make films out of Suzanne Collins’ sequels to the book, “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay.”
That’s because Lionsgate Entertainment Corp., the studio that produced the movie, has signed the actors to a four-movie deal to star in the sequels.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. was reported to have spent tens of millions of dollars renegotiating the contracts for the cast of the Harry Potter movies when the studio decided to make two movies out of the last book in the J.K. Rowling Series.
Summit Entertainment LLC reportedly went through similar negotiations with Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson when it decided to make the last installment of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series into two films.
The stars of “The Hunger Games” probably earned about $500,000 each for the movie, comparable to what the Pattinson and Stewart reportedly earned for “Twilight,” the first of that series. The “Hunger Games” stars can expect about the same for the sequels under the terms of their contracts.
But there’s no need to feel too bad for Hutcherson, Lawrence, and Hemsworth. They’ll probably be able to renegotiate with Lionsgate if the first movie is a success and the studio decides to continue with the sequels. But with a contract already in place, they just won’t have the leverage to get anything close to the $12.5 million each that Stewart and Pattinson reportedly brought in for “Breaking Dawn.”