
Grand Theft Auto IV Makes $600m. Lead Actor Makes $100k! Ridiculous... - berecruited
http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2008/05/21/grand-theft-auto-iv-makes-600m-niko-bellics-actor-makes-100k/
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rms
They made a conscious decision to not go after mainstream Hollywood talent
this time. They needed it for credibility and marketing in the past but at
this point the GTAIV marketing machine did just fine without Samuel J Jackson
or Ray Liotta doing voices. Talented voice actors are a _much_ better deal
than A-list Hollywood talent for voice acting. The real shame is that voice
actors are so underpaid by the market. Billy West, who voices Fry and many
more on Futurama, has talked about this in various forms of media.

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bberry
Great point... The roles are VERY different:

In film, the voice actor is often used for marketing (ie Jack Black in Panda
kung-fu film)

In TV, they tend to really drive the show (Family Guy, Futurama, etc)

In video games, it's a complete non-factor unless you're John Madden.

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berecruited
This guy is completely delusional... people would play the game if my little
sister did the voice overs.

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hugh
_hen they’re making hundreds of millions of dollars, and we don’t see any of
it. I don’t blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in
place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games._

I wonder if he realizes what would happen if their union actually tried to
enforce such an agreement. The video game industry, unlike the film and TV
industries, can easily walk away from using union talent at all.

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briansmith
He got exactly the amount of money he requested. $100K is a lot of money
considering that there are thousands of others that would have done the same
work for a fraction of that.

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rms
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/arts/television/21gta.html...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/arts/television/21gta.html?_r=2&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin)

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rms
This guy is going to be a Screen Actor's Guild hero; his career is set.

