Friends is the most popular show even to this day. It came in the 90s but feels like people still have an affinity for this show. Be it because of the amazing cast, amazing storylines, or amazing fashion sense. There are tons of videos where people are recreating looks from the show and using the dialogues to ask each other out. Basically, Friends is undoubtedly a religion of the Millenials and everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon.
Friends is an American sitcom that premiered on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004. The show revolves around six friends in their 20s and 30s who live in Manhattan, New York City. The episodes take us along their journey as they figure their way through various comedic and romantic routes and career issues. The show is out of the world, real, and practical. This is the reason why the new generation watches it and probably the coming generations will as well. So, automatically the viewership and the actors’ pay come into the question. So, if you also have every wondered how much do the actors get paid to this day, keep reading.
Initial pay to the stars of Friends over the show’s running years.
The initial payment started as a normal pay that actors used to get back in the 90s. For the first season of Friends, all the main six actors received $22,500 per episode. When the views and feedback came back to be positive, the makers increased their pay to $40,000 per episode in the second season. Then, from the third season, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer, started receiving payments of $75,000 per episode. The fourth season yielded them $85,000 per episode.
They started making a six-figure income from the fifth season. For the sixth season of Friends, they got $125,000 per episode. The major influx of their pay started coming from the seventh and eighth seasons. The actors started getting remuneration of $750,000 per episode. Finally, from the ninth season, friends’ cast became the highest-paid TV actors of all time, making $1 million-plus per episode.
That’s a lot of monaaaayyyy!!
What about their income now?
According to USA Today, Warner Bros. is the one who sits at the top of this hierarchy. The company earns $1 billion a year from syndication revenue. The main actors get 2 percent of the show’s syndication revenue, which is roughly around $20 million annually, from the reruns. Hence, it is easy to say that the actors are lucrative earning people in Hollywood. You won’t find many people who get more than $20 million a year for something that ended ever a decade ago.
The show is on HBO Max and Netflix now in 2020. So, we can concur with the fact that the six actors not only delivered their best in the show but are getting the absolute best that they can. Friends is a legacy created for generations to come and we are merely waiting for the day when we get our best negotiation!
AH!DREAMS…….
