Moses Avalon is one of the nation’s leading music-business consultants and artists’-rights advocates and is the author of a top-selling music business reference, Confessions of a Record Producer. More of his articles can be found at www.mosesavalon.com.
You don’t have to scratch your head too much to recall that Jim Carrey or [Arnold] Schwarzenegger got about $25 million to perform in their movies, or to remember the $280 million that it cost to make Titanic. I’d like you to ask yourself a question: why in the hell do you know these facts? They are not important to your day-to-day survival, yet they are part of common pop-culture knowledge.
Now ask yourself this: how much did Eminem’s last four albums cost? What about how much it cost to market and promote U2’s integrations into the iPod? What? No answer? The reason you have no idea is because whenever you learn how much an actor is getting paid, it’s not a fact that was uncovered by hard-nosed investigative journalism. It’s in a press release. The film industry wants everyone to know that it’s costing them a truckload of cash to entertain you, the public.
Over the last 60 years, while the movie industry has been investing millions a year in educating us about their costs, the record companies have not invested dime-one on this area. They have not taught us music’s cash value.
You probably don’t even realize it, but one important reason you don’t feel easily comfortable sneaking into a blockbuster movie is because subconsciously you figure, “It’s only nine bucks, what the heck, they spent $100 million to make it.”