Background: Matt Weiner is the guy who created Mad Men. He's the showrunner. He's the guy who RUNS THE SHOW. And since his contract is up, he's asked for a new salary: 10 million per year, plus control over some of the promotion of the show. This is not too crazy - certainly just an opening salvo for a show that's on basic cable...but it's also the first basic cable show to win a crapload of Emmy's.
Lionsgate, the company that produces the show and puts in on AMC, has decided in response to start seeing who they could replace Matt Weiner with.
THIS IS MADNESS. (That was an unfortunate pun, but I'm upset) Need I remind Lionsgate what happens when a show loses his creator??? I'm still willing to pay someone to kill John Wells for what he did to the West Wing after Aaron Sorkin got booted. What would The Soprano's have been without David Chase? What would Hill Street Blues have been without Steven Bochco? What would any show about lawyers with Tourettes be without David E. Kelley?
Mad Men is brilliant and thought out and has been AMC's chance to overtake the original programming of FX, Lifetime, et. al. They shouldn't ruin that. Jackasses.
p.s. - Matt, if they offer you 7 mill, just go with it, okay?
Here's the Nikki Finke article
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Somebody Has Lost Their Damn Minds Over At Lionsgate
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3 comments:
Do you expect Lionsgate to lose money just so you could enjoy your show? They are not a charity and not in that business. They need to make a profit on a show, not lose money. And when a show is on AMC and only averages 1.5 million viewers, you cannot give the creator HBO type money. It just doesn't work out.
Opening salvo. They should be bargaining, not asking about other showrunners. The show is what is going to make all their other programming get better advertising rates, too - and let's not forget that the ad demo's for the show are the highest demo there is: middle age people who make over 100,000. Mad Men has a two year commitment, which means they can commit advertising for that long too. Plus tie ins, syndication, dvd's.... they are going to make an incredible sum on this show. He's the creator, executive producer, head writer, and showrunner... he should get paid.
Oh man, I do miss the West Wing. There hasn't been anything that satisfying on TV since. Sigh.
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