Alleged cast salaries for the final season of hit Netflix series Stranger Things have been leaked, with one glaring omission.
With the fifth and final season of Stranger Things slated to start production in May, Puck News has detailed the renegotiated salaries for all of the cast according to “multiple sources”… except for Millie Bobbie Brown, who is expected to out-earn everyone on the show.
With around 20 series regulars to renegotiate with, there is apparently a four-tier system which divided the cast members:
- Tier One: Winona Ryder (Joyce) and David Harbour (Hopper), the adults who have been with the show since the first season.
- Tier Two: The four original boys – Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas), Noah Schnapp (Will), and Finn Wolfhard (Mike), plus later arrival Sadie Sink (Max), who was added to this tier after “lobbying hard” for inclusion.
- Tier Three: The other teens, including Natalia Dyer (Nancy), Maya Hawke (Robin), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan) and Joe Keery (Steve).
- Tier Four: Everybody else.
Ryder and Harbour will reportedly take home the biggest pay checks for this season, banking USD $9.5 million (around $13.8 million AUD), followed by the tier two cast with “just over” USD $7 million (around $10 million AUD) then tier three with “just over” USD $6 million (around $8.6 million AUD) and finally, tier four, with “much less”.
Puck News also reported that lawyers involved with negotiations argued that Netflix technically didn’t have the original cast members under contract at all, because the deals brokered for the show from 2015 violated California’s “7-year rule,” which prohibits personal services contracts from extending beyond seven years.
Although Netflix denied the allegations, offers were raised significantly. For comparison, Ryder and Harbour reportedly made $350,000 per episode for the third season, or USD $2.8 million for the whole series, while the kids were originally copping $25,000 per episode.
Millie Bobbie Brown has an entirely separate deal with Netflix, which includes the Enola Holmes movies and a role in the Russo brothers’ next project, The Electric State.
Love Film & TV?
Get the latest Film & TV news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
Variety reported last year that Brown would pick up USD $10 million (around $14.5 million AUD) for the Enola Holmes series alone.