In March, Amy Pascal was scram-
bling. The producer’s overall
deal at Sony Pictures — greenlit
by the studio's former chair-
man and chief executive Michael
Lynton — was set to expire in
three months, and there was little
chance that current film chair-
man Tom Rothman would renew
a 4-year-old arrangement that
saw Pascal earning significant
backend compensation on mov-
ies she produced. The deal had
led to a $10 million windfall on
2018’s Spider-Man spin off Ven om,
according to multiple sources,
and with two guaranteed release
slots every year, Pascal essentially
was guaranteed an eight-figure
income for her services. Even
more disconcerting for the Sony
film chair turned producer, there
was little appetite elsewhere for a
similar contract.
One month later, Pascal moved
her deal to Universal. But what
wasn’t mentioned in press cover-
age at the time was that her new
pact is a significant downgrade
from her Sony deal. Sources say
instead of $10 million a year for
overhead and discretionary buy-
ing, the Universal setup is in the
$1 million to $2 million range
annually. The guaranteed release
slots are gone.
“No one else was knocking
down her door,” says a source
familiar with the dealmaking.
“No one was willing to pay those
Spider-Man fees.”
Even in the era of deep-pock-
eted streamers and what many
have described as a content
bubble, the golden producing
parachute is becoming extinct,
coinciding with overall pushbacks
on non-writing film produc-
ers — both the powerful and
journeymen. In quick succession,
Matt Tolmach, a former Pascal
lieutenant, exited his first-look
film deal at Sony (a source says
it was the producer’s choice to
let the deal lapse, opting for free
agency, and he will remain with
the studio for TV), while Neal
Moritz was dropped from future
Fast & Furious movies, beginning
with spinoff Hobbs & Shaw, after
making the first eight movies
of the Universal franchise (he
still has a film producing deal
at Paramount). And in perhaps
the most glaring sign of the
times, X-Men gatekeeper Simon
Kinberg — whose Fox film
producing deal was one of the
richest in Hollywood (he took
home $40 million on Deadpool
alone) — isn’t staying on after
Disney’s acquisition of Fox (his
deal quietly ended in 2018, and he
was dropped from future X-Men
films as Marvel Studios presi-
dent Kevin Feige takes over Fox’s
Marvel properties).
The message rippling through
the community was clear.
Producers, at least on the movie
side, are seen as expendable.
As the major studios move
to increasingly tentpole-heavy
slates, producers are being
squeezed like never before. The
trend reflects America’s broader
disparities: There is the one per-
cent, consisting mostly of writers
like J.J. Abrams, who is in final
negotiations on a $500 million
deal at WarnerMedia that covers
both film and TV, followed by a
dwindling pool of top-tier non-
writing producers like Lorenzo
di Bonaventura (Paramount) and
David Heyman (Warner Bros.),
who still boast sizable overhead
deals with major studios even
if backend is shrinking. Then
there’s everyone else. All the
while, the once-thriving middle
class is fading fast.
“It sure helps to have a fran-
chise,” says di Bonaventura, who
produces the Transformers movies
as well as nonfranchise hits like67