Jennifer Lawrence's Salary Drama: $20M 'Passengers' Pay Tests Sony
If a person were to try to design a movie project that could simultaneously attract and repel a fiscally prudent studio executive like Sony Pictures' new film chief Tom Rothman, it might be the space drama Passengers.
Rothman found Passengers awaiting his green light when he replaced Amy Pascal in the top job at the studio in late February. And while the project has obvious attractions — with red-hot Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt set to star in the interstellar love story and Morten Tyldum, who scored an Oscar nomination for directing The Imitation Game, on board — it hardly is an obvious yes: talent getting top dollar for an original idea with special effects that Rothman is said to see as a marketing challenge and that doesn't appear to have franchise potential. Not necessarily an easy call for an executive expected to bring restraint to a studio that, under Pascal, long was known for its generosity to talent.
Before Rothman, 60, officially took over,
Sony already had agreed to pay Lawrence $20 million to star, though her role actually is somewhat secondary to Pratt's. His deal gives him about $10 million with the possibility (likelihood) of more based on the performance of Universal's Jurassic World reboot (June 12). With its two huge stars, Passengers is important to Sony "because it has a hook; it's marketable internationally," argues one source close to the project, and the studio doesn't have a lot of branded intellectual property in its cupboard.
Lawrence, 24, and her CAA reps are said to have held firm to the $20 million fee. As the Sony hack revealed, she had gotten a smaller percentage of the profit pool from American Hustle than co-stars Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and even Jeremy Renner. Lawrence — arguably the biggest star of the lot at the time — was getting seven points, while the men got nine each. As Sony president Doug Belgrad noted in a hacked email, "It's a joke that JLa is at 7 and Renner is at 9."
Having not found that joke funny, sources say Lawrence was prepared to walk away from Passengers if she didn't get to $20 million on this film, and Tyldum was ready to exit with her. Pascal herself might have fanned the flames with her February interview in which she was asked about the Lawrence pay gap. "
The truth is that what women have to do is not work for less money," Pascal said. "They have to walk away. People shouldn't be so grateful for jobs."
Sony is said to feel justified in the deal, even if this movie isn't based on a known property like The Hunger Games,
because Lawrence got what was regarded as a surprising $15 million to star in Joy, the story of the inventor of the Miracle Mop that David O. Russell is making for Fox.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...ama-20m-793753
I heard about this before and I'm glad it's confirmed. Both of them are amazing (especially Queen Jennifer) and an extra slay at her getting them coins. 
I already feel like one. J. Law doing what others could only dream of
at her getting more money for this than THG. But I'm glad she fought for her salary. I am wondering if she found out for the first time about her salary against her other American Hustle co-stars through the Sony hack? A powerful woman like her better lash Sony and demand the pay she deserves. 
