Jul 22, 2022

Steve Carell's $12.5 Million Paycheck for "Gru: The Flame Changers" Highlights Animation's Revenue Gap

Artists are expressing disappointment after it was revealed this week that actor Steve Carell received a whopping $12.5 million for his voice in "Minion": artists are therefore expressing their disappointment.

Their disappointment seems even more justified given that NCB Universal and Illumination's latest film broke the $500 million mark at the box office last weekend.

The budget for Rise of Grue was $80 million, meaning that Carell alone accounted for more than 15% of the film's cost. This is quite a large sum for a film that Carell himself admits required little effort.

"It's the easiest thing in the world, and I'm not going to lie," he said of voice acting in a June 2013 interview with CNN's Kate Bourdain while promoting Despicable Me 2. 'Yeah, it's crazy. You can get in there looking terrible. Yeah, in pajamas. You just show up and you sound like crap for about five hours."

Carell's sentiments are not limited to A-list stars voicing big-budget animated features. There is often a disconnect between the high-profile voice actors who perform very part-time in animated films and the professionals who dedicate their life's work to making them look good on the big screen.

In the same CNN interview, Carell explained We have a session every few months, and we animate to your voice. So you don't see the animation. So the animation process takes a long time and the script gets tweaked."

In a live-action film or series, the actor is the person most responsible for how his or her character looks and moves on screen. This is not the case with animation. The bulk of the final performance is in the hands of the artist, who works tirelessly to make the physical manifestation of the character click.

Perhaps Matthew Robert Davis, the artist on "The Adventures of Paddington," best summed up the general consensus regarding Carell's high fee in his viral tweet:

I don't care what anyone says, the bulk of that budget should be given to the animation staff. Distributing that $10 million to the actual animation studio staff could change lives. https://t.co/dCSGXRFVEk

- Matthew Robert Davies (@Matt2Dee) July 21, 2022

Carrell's "Minions": the Rise of Gru was first reported by Variety.