Remember When Bruce Willis Got $20 Mil A Picture? Good Times
The Smoking Gun has gotten its hands on a host of budgets from M. Night Shyamalan's gotcha! ouevre, and despite the fact that we know movies are too expensive and stars are wildly overpaid and spoiled, we're still amused and appalled anew by Bruce Willis' $1.5 million package:
But the "Unbreakable" budget is more noteworthy (or entertaining, at least) for Willis's $1.5 million perk package. While that figure covered on-set staples like a costumer and makeup artist, the actor, who portrayed morose security guard David Dunn, also got a personal assistant, masseuse, mobile gym, trainer, bodyguard, and other "personal perks," including a $500,000 allowance for private jet charters. By comparison, the perk package for [Samuel L.] Jackson—who played comic art enthusiast Elijah Price—was relatively paltry. Jackson only rated first class airfares to Philadelphia from Los Angeles and a $200 per diem. But his gym and golf club memberships and his trainer's tab were footed by the production.
Like we said, we're all probably a little numb to Willis's extravagant muscle-kneading requirements by now. But with low-budgeted indie and indie-ish productions like Good Night and Good Luck and Capote dominating Oscar Week discussion, it's important that we don't forget the kind of epically wasteful studio blockbusters that are the reason that we all left our homes back East to brave certain death by catastrophic earthquake in Los Angeles.