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EXCLUSIVE: It takes a lot to shock me when it comes to Hollywood business. But this is lunacy. I've confirmed that Lionsgate execs are calling Hollywood agencies looking for a showrunner to replace Matthew Weiner, the brilliant creator of Mad Men. The reason is that they think Weiner's agents at CAA are asking for too much money for him. I hear CAA wants a multi-year deal that pays Weiner $10 million a year. (As opposed to what people tell me is the $2.5 million he should probably pocket...) Plus he wants control over promotion and advertising. Now that's consistent with a big hit on pay cable and what Darren Star or David Chase made on HBO. 
But it's way, way rich for a Lionsgate show on AMC, and execs are telling CAA it can't pay that. "The 'ask' was insanity," one insider tells me. "It's preposterous. AMC is a basic cable network. The economics don't support this. It's why Lionsgate is throwing their arms up in the air. And, remember, they got a two-year pickup for the show with or without Matt Weiner." So Lionsgate picked up the phone and began asking the tenpercenteries for a "general list" of possible showrunners, and about the availability of specific names (like Aaron Sorkin). The agents' reactions were exactly like mine: are these suits NUTS?
Of course, no one decent would ever trample on Weiner's toes unless he blessed it. But this is also the surest way to fuck up the first basic cable program to ever win the Emmy for best drama. And let's not forget that the AMC show ended its 2nd season Sunday with record ratings. Sunday's finale averaged 1.75 million total viewers for its 10 PM airing, an 89% improvement over the first-season finale's 926,000. Compared with Season 1, Mad Men 2.0 saw a 63% increase in total viewers (an average of 1.5 million viewers vs. 925,000), a 109% jump in the adults 18-49 demo (705,000 vs. 338,000) and an 81% increase in adults 25-54 (780,000 vs. 430,000). Those still aren't great numbers even if every thinking person loves the series. When I asked a Lionsgate source about this situation, I was told, "We're negotiating with Matthew Weiner. But we want him back..." Then why do this? My bet is it's a reaction to having Carl Icahn crawling up Jon Feltheimer's ass.
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i will be on suicide watch if ANYONE besides weiner is running that show.
this all sounds like dick swingin’. once both parties determine either who’s got the biggest or, more than likely, they’re both the same size, they’ll settle. weiner should ask for millions. that show put AMC on the map.
I totally agree. Take a perfect storm, and rather than run with it, nurture it, and grow it . . . just fuck it up by replacing the guy who made it happen and brought it to life.
That said, Nicki, you sure you’re not being played as a negotiating ploy by Lionsgate here? Doesn’t matter who tipped you (presumably someone inside CAA) – Lionsgate knew it’d get out…
I think they’re both being outrageous as part of the negotiation process. Both sides start by demanding too much of the other, then they argue, scream, threaten, and then come up with a reasonable number.
The only time a problem arises is when one side takes the outrage too seriously, and personally, and it goes from a negotiation to a vendetta.
Lionsgate has a billion dollar franchise (SAW) and going strong and they can’t give Mr. Weiner the $10 mil?
W.O.W. Daft punks — no doubt about it. MAD MEN has brought them acclaim and prestige which they can finagle into various other revenue streams and they can’t see this as an investment…?!!
Oh, I forgot — the guy’s just the show’s HEAD WRITER and EXECUTIVE PRODUCER. No one, really, in the scheme of things. Morons…
Nikki, we don’t always agree but you’re dead right on this one. Replacing Weiner, who is clearly a genius, would be insane. Just making the list of possible showrunners is hilarious.
However, I doubt they are seriously considering replacing him, it’s probably a brinksmanship maneuver with CAA to let them know that the offer they made would never work….
Ah, dealmaking. what joy, what joy…
Why is it that Hollywood can’t figure out that the person who created the show should stay with the show and that they deserve (basically) pretty much what they ask for?
How many shows have we seen get taken over by someone else and then utterly fail creatively? Too many.
Bleah.
They need to give Weiner the most they can possibly afford. MAD MEN is just too good to lose to less-capable hands.
If he’s really looking for $10 million per year then they should tell him he’s lost his mind. The finances of a hit network show don’t support those numbers no less a marginally rated cable show. Greed is not good.
It’s a great show and I saw every episode this season (and the finale wasn’t great), but the ratings are minor… this is no sopranos and the agents are nuts in their ask for weiner.
Well he shouldn’t be so greedy…10 million a year at AMC…yeah right!
It’s also a shame the show can’t be moved to HBO, it would do so much better in the ratings. But AMC won’t and should not lose this now, afterall they believed in the show when no one else did. And Matt should remember that…
I for one will never again watch anything on AMC if they mess with Matt Weiner. Hopefully it is just a negotiating ploy and they will come to their senses and give Matt what he deserves for creating the best show on television.
Without a doubt Weiner has created a fantastic show but for CAA to ask for so much dosh is just crazy. The show is good, but it’s not that good. If this is the gun put to Lionsgate’s head, they are right to walk away.
Mad Men is a brilliant show that garners very low ratings, even by basic cable standards. While its creator should certainly be rewarded for creative success, the fact is that the ratings barely support even getting picked up let alone giving out huge raises . I hope Weiner stays with the show and realizes that a creative gem with terrible ratings on a tiny cable network isn’t going to be his big pay day. He should guide the show through another couple of seasons and then take a massive overall deal somewhere where he can develop for networks that get the kinds of numbers that can support his ask.
Sorry, but ten million a year is nuts. What’s the justification here? I’m betting David Chase didn’t pick up that much dough in his third season.
Neither the show nor Weiner are worth that much money Nikki.
Look at this way — basic economics are that consumers are pressed, don’t have much money, and will curtail spending wherever they can. Basic cable will likely be the last cut, but it will be cut unless there’s a huge hit.
A paltry 2 million viewers are not it. If the show was pulling in 4-5 million maybe it’s worth fighting over. But let’s be honest — you Nikki are not most consumers. Nor am I or anyone else here.
The economics of a prolonged recession means that niche shows have to be done dirt cheap, no matter how much publicity they get. Hits can pay for expensive talent.
Look at what CBS and NBC are doing — as much broad, 4 quadrant shows as possible. People will cut back on entertainment, and broadly accessible TV shows are the future. Sopranos, Shield, and yes Mad Men are the past.
This is agenting insanity. How can a Basic Cable network pay that kind of money. Even a network wouldn’t. Taking into account that AMC was the only one to give it life, they owe each other for the success.
Is even $5MM insulting?
Greed is good?
CAA’s demands on this one are outrageous as anyone who works in basic cable can attest to. And the POV that its Lionsgate screwing this one up is so obviously slanted towards the creative side. Its bad business. You are talking about a great show that gets OK ratings (nowhere near a David Chase or Darren Starr show) at an ad supported, evolving network that gets little ratings halo from Mad Men. Also, why should the stellar award winning marketing team from Lionsgate get dictated to from someone with no marketing experience? Also, moving money from the Saw franchise to pay for this deal speaks to a naivete that makes me cringe. And no, I don’t work at Lionsgate.
btw, $10mm/year is NOT outrageous. the economics have NOTHING to do with the ratings the show gets in its domestic first run. this thing is going to be a long term, global monster in syndication IF they do it right for at least another 2 (and preferably 3) seasons. $10mm/year for matt will seem like chump change to Lionsgate – and the rest of us – when the syndie money starts flowing in….
By the way, just emailed my agent to say that if they can’t get the dough for Matt, I’ll take the show, and the blame, for half that amount. Okay, one third. A tenth and I’m in!
1.75 million viewers for a season finale, and the star gets to host SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE?
Don’t get me wrong, Jon Hamm did a great job, but… STARGATE: ATLANTIS gets more viewers than MAD MEN. Let DAVID HEWLETT host SNL already! He’d be just as good if not better.
lionsgate is crazy weiner deserves every penny and more!!!!!!!!!! this is the best show i have ever seen on tv cable or no cable even surpassing the sopranos which i loved !!!!!!!!!!!! breaking bad is great too but mad men is the perfect bergman piece !!!!!!
I’ve met Matt and he has fought tooth and nail for this baby. He SHOULD get paid alot to keep on it. After all, it put AMC on the map as a network. Regardless of small ratings, just HOW MUCH extra cash have they made in advertising revenue from this? And Lionsgate should go after some of that if they are crying poverty – after making a zillion dollars yet again on SAW [insert number] that is. Perhaps $10M a year is high (thanks CAA!) but somewhere in that 7-fig territory has got to be possible.
Love the show, think Weiner is amazing, period. But $10M/year to run a show that does 1.75 million viewers on a good day is a crazy CAA ask.(Not that they haven’t asked for crazy $$$ before.)
Level heads need to do the math and pay him what he’s worth, but get real. (or is this just a sign that bonuses at CAA are going to be miserly this year?)
Can we all discuss casting directors. Wow! I have dealt with casting directors for almost 20 years. What is mind boggling is the power they have that goes wasted. In today’s climate casting directors only see either people they know or those who suck their balls (that goes for the woman too.) It’s a shame. They have the opportunity to discover talent and I find the fastest way to get new talent into auditions is to go around the casting director straight to the director. Sad but true. Long gone are the days where casting directors were looked at as an important part of the creative process. Today the are treated and garbage and it seems to be their own fault. I have worked with some of the top talent in the game today. I cannot point to one that was discovered by a casting director. Why? Because if it was up to casting they would never be seen. Hmm.
So Weiner (how appropriate) wants a million dollars per viewer? Seriously, if the guy wants the big bucks then he needs to get his ass to a real network and produce a show that attracts an audience of actual viewers (as opposed to fawning critics).
Morons.
Let Weiner run his show and stick to doing what you do well.
Oh wait, Lionsgate doesn’t do anything well. Woops.
Might as well get rid of Don Draper too. Why does Hollywood ALWAYS screw up a good thing?
No one heard of AMC before Mad Men. No one. I’m sorry, AMC what? Is that the Ted Turner channel that shows all those old movies? Now AMC has the momentum to become another USA or FX. Matt Weiner gave them that, and it’s worth more than the $10 mil/yr he is asking.
But, he already gave it to them. They figure they have banked the lion’s (yar) share of the prestige the show will garner, and they can kick Weiner out and coast for a few years. Ah what fools these mortals be! A couple of bad episodes next year, and not only is Mad Men off the radar, but so is AMC. Done. Finished. The actors will start kicking to get out of their contracts. Enough of them will succeed to hurt the show. And then in two years, the network that could have been another USA-level cash cow will have become simply… another AMC.
Matt, as a writer who watches this show and weeps at how amazingly good it is, I say, get the money or run. The money shows they respect you and you deserve respect. And if those assholes don’t appreciate how special you are, let them find out the hard way, when everything they’ve gained through you is lost in short order. Two years hence, they’ll only wish they could buy another Mad Men for 10mil/yr. What struggling basic cable net wouldn’t?
Art=Life=Hollywood
The season ends with Don Draper walking out on his terms, now his creator does the same. Go for it, Weiner!
Sigh. This is more of the same. It’s just a more specific version of “Writers/Actors want $X of Y” instead of “X% of Y”. The former is an unfair demand which has the production company bearing all of the risk and the person taking the first money out. The latter is a more equitable demand which provides an appropriate risk/reward tradeoff (assuming X and Y are agreed upon).
“I have a hit show, therefore I can make a ludicrous demand” is all too popular an occurrence. Of course, it works with on camera talent because the Darren/Darren and Becky/Becky swaps don’t usually work. A producer with a ridiculous demand – not the same by a long shot.
I am uninmpressed with the demand, and those who thought it was a good idea, and I hope Lionsgate pushes back.
All of this may very well be a tempest in a teapot anyway. If a rep decides to toss out a crazy offer (because you can only go down from your first offer), the only real reaction is to start looking for a replacement. That will bear positive fruit in either a good replacement or a more reasonable counter demand. Of course, if the next counter-demand is equally insane, you push more toward the former. A few rounds of insane counters, and they sign the new guy. If that happens, it is the representative who failed.
How can they produce the same show without its Creator? They’re going to take one of the best written and most interesting shows on TV and bury it.
I definitely think that $10MM is over the top. Hopefully they can meet somewhere in the middle and Weiner stays on.
I can’t believe anyone is making noise about this. It’s business as usual. Agents (especially CAA agents)always start with ridiculous and work their way down from there. That said, Weiner created a brilliant show and deserves to make money from it. They’ll find a compromise. There’s no way Weiner wants to leave this show in anyone else’s hands.
Come on CAA… Ovitz left a along time ago and your innovative, salary enhancing days are behind you. Keep turning into a corporation, signing athletes, and destroying your clients’ careers. Maybe if they don’t get the 10 mil they can get him a back end only deal like Jim Carey.
as a civilian, could someone explain what the norm is for something like this so we can determine who is the greedy asshole here? Does mr. Weiner get any DVD money? What do other showrunners get?
Weiner hit a five run homer with the finale of season two. The people at Lionsgate can play hardball it they like, but they will lose the audience that is paying attention, and that’s most of the small crowd whose watching this great show.
Seriously, this is as good as it gets right now, though it can’t hold a candle to the best show ever on TV, which got a total of ZERO Emmys in its five season run, The Wire.
The Wire is Barack Obama’s favorite show of all time. He’s one smart mofo.
I have been in sales for years of course he knows that is ridiculous. You start high they start low and you end somewhere in the middle.
what??? what would The Sopranos have been like if DC did only 2 seasons?? get the tranquilizer gun ready for these Lionsgate dudes…
Mad Men is the best show on TV.
Matt is a controlling, cheating, two-faced douchebag without a sense of humor. But, he should get as much as he possibly can. I don’t like the show as much as the rest of America does. Ratings are not great. Demographics are OK. Run 4 million up the flag pole. Matt will salute.
The ratings are misleading. I watch the show twice
on Sunday, and again On Demand. (Yeah, I know I
should record it. But I don’t.)
Mad Men has taken AMC to a whole new level. Look
at what’s happened with Showtime. It’s the new
HBO. It started with a few break out hits and now
it’s a juggernaut of fine writing and talent.
Ad revenue should increase, and Weiner should
reap rewards now for making us obsessed with Mad
Men.
The other new show that got to me like that is
Damages. If it hadn’t been renewed, I’d have been
devastated. Ratings were low, though. I wonder
what the creators of Damages are paid.
Rebop
yeah, take one of the most original shows, which only breathed life into an entire cable network and put it on the map, then try to replace the creator. um, real good move.
hopefully the negotiation tantrums will settle down without yanking out the show’s brilliant creator. i agree with the guy who weeps at the show’s writing. hope it survives the execs. otherwise, what’s AMC?
Agree with the other posters here who say that AMC was nowhere before Mad Men entered the picture. Remember, it wasn’t all that long ago that AMC ran nothing but theatricals and had no original series. Mad Men may have a small (and growing) audience, but it’s got Hollywood’s attention. Regular people, too, talk and blog about it endlessly.
Also agree that this is more of business as usual. Big swinging dicks, blah, blah, blah. Who knows where it’s all going to shake out? This is just the opening round, I hope.
And Crystal Diane Stevens? $10 million for 1,750,000 viewers isn’t a million bucks per viewer. You might want to check your math on that.
Just sayin’.
Leave it to CAA to mess up a good thing…they are going to blow the best thing that AMC has – at the end of the day, it’s ICM’s hard work that made the show. They repped Matt Weiner and got AMC to buy it when everyone else passed, they cast the core of the show (Jon Hamm, January Jones, Vincent Kartheiser).
As a young, aspiring television writer, does anyone know what other cable showrunners get paid? Even for shows on premium cable like HBO or Showtime? I would think one would have to know the barometer to measure against, in order to fully comprehend the nature of Weiner’s quote.
Oh give me break…there is a difference between a great show and one with high income potential.
Nice try, CAA…great show doesn’t = an earner. Dumb fucks.
Yes…Mad Men may be nothing without Weiner…but it’s still an AMC show.
If I were to fill my toilet with awesome low revenue shows i would have to call a plumber to clean up my entire building.
CAA needs to get over their ignorant “market share, market share..” mantra and embrace reality.
If I’m AMC, fab though Mad Men is i’d flush it before I agreed on $10m/annum for a show runner.
If Weiner wants that cash, he should sell some assy show about lawyers/teachers in south central to Fox.
MAD MEN is a serialized, period drama being produced by an outside studio for AMC. The real money being made here is by AMC, who took tons of risk in launching and promoting this show. They will, along with Cablevision, reap the benefits in years to come when they renegotiate with cable systems like Comcast, Time Warner and Cox to raise their monthly fee. This is a replay of THE SHIELD for FX, where Shawn Ryan and Michael Chiklis rewrote the rules. SOPRANOS and SEX AND THE CITY were big, but HBO already was throwing off $1b per year for Time Warner.
But, this is still BASIC TINY cable. The increases due to MW and his actors will come. But they will come within the normal parameters, no matter how much bluster MW and his manager Keith Addis put out there via DHD, Variety, etc. CAA must be going crazy with the leaked info here … no one wants to hear that their client’s $10m per year demand is insane (And it is). No one wants that number tossed around freely.
The deal ends up at under $10m for 2 years including his next piece of development. MW should go make his money in movies …
if he wants to get super rich in television, he should go create a procedural drama. HEre, he can get mildly rich … prob 2,3,4 million per year plus some development pad.
He’s lucky to have this show, and incredibly skilled in making it.
Maybe, Matt, it’s not all about the cash.
You’ll work forever off this credit, and can continue to “cash that check”. But dont equate this show with SOPRANOS. Their audience was 8 times bigger (at least) and they came at the peak of the DVD market. Oh, and they had an off-HBO sale of $1.9m per episode. Factor all that in, and you have a cash cow.
Forgot to add…
Total viewers over the 3 airings (10p, 11p, 1a) for the finale were 2.9 million. That ain’t hay, folks. Matt Weiner has a case for what he’s asking. Primetime drama Emmys don’t come cheap.
Mad Men is overhyped and underwritten. This season it was style over substance and everyone’s falling for it. C’mon, everything in 1962 was subtextual — no one says what they feel? Huh? And both seasons ending with a main character getting pregnant — redundant! And it’s not great writing to stretch a story arc — unwanted pregnancy/what happened to baby — for 12 eps. C’mon! Oh, and why can’t poor Matty Weiner write a whole eps himself — he always has to share credit. I know, so hard to be a showrunner — suck it and write the eps yourself, you thought of it!
Much better show is BREAKING BAD. Characters are real and situations totally original and complex. Acting amazing – check. Writing amazing – check. Directing — f’ing brilliant — double check. Watch it!
Matthew Hubbard is totally correct — THE WIRE best show in last decade. Easy.
Does Matt Weiner deserve to earn as much if not more than most showrunners on TV? Most certainly.
Is Mad Men already an expensive production that is bleeding money because of it’s low viewership? Most certainly.
$10 million a year wouldn’t be an unreasonable request on a network show, or even on HBO or Showtime. But the truth is, both AMC and Lionsgate are already losing money when it comes to this show. And I don’t think they can afford to lose any more.
Mad Men is exceptional, and I’m sure there will be a ‘deal worked out’….the sad thing is, there used to be exceptional television shows on such as The Defenders, with EG Marshall, Play House 90, The Avengers, The Twilight Zone, Texaco Star Theater, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, great variety shows galore (Jackie Gleason, Our Show of Shows, Jack Benny), and exceptional PBS series, such as I Claudius.
The problem is that there’s been such bad television for so long, that Mad Men, seems great….I love it, I think that is a very well written show, but if you put it in perspective, the simple fact of the matter, is that the quality (except for Cable) has lapsed into those horrible reality TV shows (where of course no writers or actors have to be hired or paid) or comedies that put you to sleep. The Cable channels took the uptake, and the other stations just stopped trying to make great shows. There were a few…X Files was fun, NYPD had a few good seasons/moments, but let’s face it, you get what you pay for, and the regular stations just get by on ‘the cheap’ so they get back what they give, which are shitty ratings because they will not hire decent writers/actors like they have for Mad Men, and it shows what a great show should look like ‘on a regular basis’ instead, everyone thinks it’s this amazing oscar worthy writing and acting. Not in the big picture, of what we used to have on television in the 50’s and 60’s…there was some damn decent writing and acting going on back then every night of the week on television. I think writers should always get a 25 percent of the take…why not? without them, there’s no story, but instead they are always treated like janitors at the end of the day, but then, I’m a writer. Laugh.
Are they all retards out there in LA?! Christ.
Never mind that you never see any promos for that show anywhere. I found it by accident, luckily, while surfing. AMC is usually avoided like the plague because I am not drawn to the sort of movies they usually show.
Fortunately I found it right as season one was beginning.
The only reason it’s seeing so much print now is because it won golden prizes, and unheard of show.
Idiots, every stinking one of them. They’ll eff this up too.
If they mess this awesome show up, I swear I’ll be custom designing body braces for those Einsteins in LA.
Promote the show so others can find it, and how many cable line-ups carry AMC?
ARGH. The idiocy.
In the 80s, Columbia Records kept Bob Dylan—who by this point, had become a money-losing slot in their ledger–because he was a lightning rod for new talent that the label wanted to sign.
The house of respect that AMC lives in, Mad Men BUILT.
This is not CSI. No one can do that show except for Matthew Weiner. Period. If AMC decides to go ahead without him, we–and I mean every show runner/creator worth his salt—will notice, and they do so at the risk of their fledgling network’s reputation.
–Jorge A. Reyes
The crazy people are Ted Miller and others at CAA. I get that you have to ask for an unreasonable number to please a demanding client (I do this all the time) but if a show pulls 1-2 million viewers then no way is anyone getting $10 million. Creative control over advertising and final cut, other things that are within Lionsgate and AMC’s powers, yes, but they simply don’t have $10 million. HBO is not an apples-to-apples comparison since they are pay cable and have those revenues to draw from, whereas AMC is a basic cable channel and a new one at that. AMC’s advertisers don’t pay huge dollars to get 1 million eyeballs per episode and so no way does AMC have the kind of money that CAA is demanding. Ted Miller and everyone else at CAA know this and so my take is that it’s a simple negotiating ploy, one designed to keep their client happy.
All I can say and I will admit it, I am a Republican and a born again Christian and I love MAD MEN.
I worked for Lionsgate for a hot second. They are just slightly smarter than Trimark. That’s not saying a lot.
MAD MEN makes me think. MAD MEN is the most intelligent series I’ve ever watched. They should do a network/cable deal like USA NBC. And without MW, how could MAD MEN continue?
MW is a genius and it is not just the production design (which needs to be slightly messier, btw) he is really getting into the themes of what the Atomic Age meant in terms of existentialism, what the sexual revolution meant in terms of who we are as Americans, etc., etc., and I need to TIVO it more than just watch.
Lionsgate, keep to your SAWs. You don’t know what you’ve got here. Has MW ever done features? He masters the art of serial story telling in MAD MEN. Thanks MW. You deserve every penny you can get, but don’t let them take it away from you.
Oh no… No NO NO…. Don’t even think about fucking with this show. With all thats going wrong in the world you want my anxiety to go off the charts worrying about not having another season of Don Draper.
NONONNONNONONONO. I wont even consider it. Fix this now. Give them all the money they want.
Matt Weiner is an incredible writer, who deserves all the praise the show gets.
BUT… is he out of his mind? I can’t believe you’re going along with his agent’s spin on this one, Nikki.
The show has a TINY audience and costs a fortune (not just in production costs but the the millions spent just getting people outside of Hollywood and New York to know its on.) You know who deserves that kind of money? The people behind I-Carly and Hannah Montana and their like. Those kid shows on Disney and Nick do much better in the ratings, cost much less, repeat extremely well, and unlike the deeply serialized show that is Mad Men will actually syndicate well, (oh, and have tons of products based on them that make millions for the studio. Not to mention actually build loyalty to their network, which Mad Man doesn’t really do.) Mad Men is the best show on TV, no doubt. And after he’s done making this tiny little art piece, Weiner will be able to get a giant development deal at the networks. To get this greedy this early on is pure EGO. And it will make networks afraid to work with him and cost him millions down the line.
The man is already known as a diva who loves attention and treats fellow writers like dogs, does he also want to be known as the guy who bit the hand of the network that actually aired his show when no one else would?
What a dope!
Weiner is worth every penny… Those Season 1-5 DVD Sets will sell like hotcakes for a very long time.
Quality TV is rare these days.
Pay the man.
“Matt is a controlling, cheating, two-faced douchebag without a sense of humor.”
Having known Matt a long time, I can say that there was certainly a time he had a sense of humor. The other stuff, unfortunately, appear to have been borne out of a fragile ego and a huge chip on his shoulder. Hollywood is a nasty, nasty place that attracts people least able to withstand its draw. He wasn’t always such a prick.
Math doesn’t add up.
Bye Matt.
Too bad. It’s a great show.
Mad Men is just another fantasy show where blacks don’t exist and women were either whores or doormats.
Weiner’s “genius” is that he’s figured out a way to pander to the homesick minds of bigots, losers and benign racists who refuse to see the world has moved on.
If a lack of women and minorities is all it takes to make someone a brilliant, then lets put a camera into every studio, network and writers room in town.
Hey, I’m a genius, too!
Make all the 60’s “60’s” and “70’s time-travel” shows you want, there’s still gonna be a black man on Pennsylvania Avenue next year.
Lionsgate, don’t give him a goddamned dime. A drunk money with diarrhea could write that fuckin’ show.
I know this is dick slinging but…Aaron Sorkin? Mad Men will become a show about opposing arguments and the nobility and honor of serving as an ad exec.
Minor cult following, coupled with a program that is nothing more than a loss leader.
Weiner disappoints … the characters are one dimensional, better suited for cartoon characters, (see Atlas Shrugged).
High marks for set design and clothing.
This is the most overrated show in the history of TV. What pretentious, overwritten crap.
Matt should remember that it wasn’t too long ago that he was publicly stating that had he left it to his pessimistic CAA agent the show would never have been made. He is, and we are, lucky that the show is even on the air. Don’t be so greedy, Matt. Just use your clout to make a new show. Leave the table while you’re flush with success. If you want a payday you’re probably going to have to cash in on whoever wants the *next* Mad Men.
I have worked with several writers who have written on Season One of Mad Men. They left because Mr. Weiner (all their words folks) was overbearing, disorganized, and constantly wanted to intro storylines and then drop them without explanation. They fought him on the “I didn’t know I was pregnant” storyline, and the anti climatic reveal of Draper’s past. While he has great ideas, apparently inside the writer’s room, he’s a mess, a tyrant, and a credit grabber.
Now I”m not saying it’s any different with other shows or showrunners, but I do find it odd that four DIFFFERNT WRITERS had the same story coming out of Season One and halfway through Season Two. Perhaps AMC (who I have no allegiance to) knows something we don’t. I do think he should be rewarded for sterring this ship, and reinvigorating adult drama. But, there’s a reason he’s giving himself more accolades than anyone else gives him. The guy doesn’t know anything about credit SHARING, and perhaps he should.
There’s more to this than meets the eye, Nikki.
Nothing like clusterfucks in suits to screw up a good thing.
AMC now has respect and visability. Why ? Because of Mad Men. While the dollars and cents get counted based upon 1.7mm viewers per episode, how do you put a price on the new reputation of AMC ? If advertising is about making your target customer aware of your product, then Mad Men has done a superb job for AMC. Ironic in a way. Could AMC have purchased the result in other ways ? Maybe. Would the price have been higher ? Probably.
$10mm per year + + is a negotiating stance, just as looking around for a replacement for MW is also a negotiating stance. AMC and MW need each other for the same reasons- respect and recognition. The deal will get done….it is as simple as that.
This is not a CAA problem, it’s a greedy bastards who set the economic model problem. For years and years people struggle to get to the point where they maybe get to create a show, and if it’s a hit, have some autonomy. And the business has finally said that is no longer going to happen. It’s what’s happening to Matt on Mad Men, it’s why networks are announcing revamps of shows from their library (Melrose Place, etc) without showrunners attached — the networks and studios want to be seen as the ‘authors’ of material, with the economic benefits that go with that, as well as fewer fights they have to have over POV and other pesky things such as that. It’s all B.S. I’m going to the internet, which DOES have a working model, and I’ll watch it all burn from that boat….
Hollywood scumbags on both sides of the aisle. A surprise?
Enough of the bitter pill…..MW make as much as you can…your show is the BEST written, best acted hour on TV by far.
Mad Men is the show that built AMC (perhaps to early to say built it), but put it on the radar as a legitimate cable network that can do original programming. But, $10m for a 3rd year show that gets decent ratings by cable standards is quite a lot. I think this will start happening a lot as cable embarks down the path of original programming. But, because they don’t have the upfront resources that NBC or ABC do, they need to basically say, take less money in your pocket now, but we will give you a bigger piece of the show.
But ReelBusy, the math DOES add up. As many have pointed out, MM put AMC on the map, not only with viewers but also with other writer/producers…it’s now a platform for introducing the next, big hit, and then that show will, in turn, serve as a springboard to launch the next, and so on.
DVD & syndication sales from a projected 5 seasons (if it gets to that) will easily exceed $50 million (remember, Family Guy was so low-rated it got cancelled till first-season DVD sales from its cultish audience exceeded 1 million)…and do not underestimate the media buying allure of the “hottest” show on television–albeit not the highest rated–to clients like Heineken that get an integrated advertising opportunity and who get to take their spouses to the MM wrap party and meet Jon Hamm.
Go for it Matt – let Lionsgate spend some of that Saw money on good material for a change.
I love the show, but I think $10mil is outrageous. They are in season two, going on three, and with these few episodes the show can never go into syndication, which is where the money is. Not to mention the fact that if LG does cave in (which I doubt…they’ll come to an agreement in the middle) to the ridiculous demands, other cuts will be made on the show, and that will include MW’s oh, so meticulous attention to detail. Out with the retro-lampshades and girdles! They’ll just get everything stock at IKEA and GAP. Hey, they do sorta retro stuff. The show will suffer either way, so CAA, get a grip. It’s too early to try to fight this battle.
A typical CAA BS…they will drive a hard bargain, even at the expense of their clients’ long-term interests, nevermind what we viewers want!
Good. Draw the line with this sh*t. $10 million? Is that necessary? Halve it. $5 million is a slap in the face? Is $1 million? Greed. I don’t care if the show makes billions for AMC and they eventually can buy their own country. If you get greedy, then you can easily be replaced. Go away and let someone else be the showrunner. Everyone can be replaced.
Why doesn’t Weinert just shop the show to a bigger network?
Greta, it’s obvious you have no clue about what life was like in the 60s. Blacks and women WERE oppressed. This show rings amazingly true for that time period. That’s what makes it so great. I know — I loved through it.
Without Weiner, the show – the best damn thing on TV worldwide for YEARS and overall one of the best shows ever made, will surely slowly go off-track, fester and die. Brilliant work, suit-people. You know best, of course. It’s not like the history of TV is littered with the pathetic corpses of shows the suits thoughts they could run better than the actual creators.
MAD MEN BROKE OUT OF THE PACK.
MATT WEINER ADDED AN EMMY TO HIS STACK.
SO HE ASKED FOR A RAISE,
AND WAS COMPLETELY AMAZED,
TO FIND LIONSGATE SMOKING CRACK.
Negotiations are always a poker match, but the one constant management always comes up with is, “Work for a pittance now, you’ll make a bundle in syndication”
The problem with this is that the money never shows up later, creative accounting never tickles down to the little people.
It’s just plain bad agenting on caa’s part because the ask is so ridiculous they’ve now put their client in an embarrassing situation. Nothing is worth that.
Hey wait a minute! Why is this such a rich deal? True AMC is a basic cable outlet. But that also means the possibility of significant ad revenues generated by probably one of the few breakthrough hits in the past two seasons. With the awards collected, AMC couldn’t get their ad sales people out on the hustings pitching this to sponsors? And if they did their jobs, the monetary pinch felt by Lionsgate might not be so bad. This show has legs here and abroad. The thought of replacing a brilliant creator like Weiner is nuts. Though the show got off to a slow start in Season Two, it ended with a bang and, frankly, it’s too early in the game to abandon the mind behind “Men’s” madness…
I wonder…is this the same agent who handled the Terrance Howard deal for Iron Man?
Taking Matt Weiner off ‘Mad Men’ is like taking a child away from its loving, caring, insightful, wise and nurturing parent. Of course agents highball offers–that’s their job! Negotiating a raise can be done if both parties care about maintaining the quality and momentum of the series!
Let’s be clear: if Weiner isn’t on Season 3 of MAD MEN, he’ll have no one to blame but himself and his agency. Avarice and a distorted sense of self worth will keep him from working; not Lionsgate and AMC. I agree that Lionsgate and AMC should reward Weiner handsomely but Weiner owes them some consideration, too. They took a chance on the series when others wouldn’t and now they’re now getting extorted for a ridiculous ask as reward. Let’s not lament for the partition of creator from series when the creator is helping carve the divide. That said, though, please work it out–hard to conceive what Mad Man will be without Weiner…
Perhaps it’s worth entertaining the possibility that Mr. Weiner actually wants to be off the show. Great as the final product is, and it is worthy of all the accolades, it’s no secret that there’s been a lot of heavy lifting. Happy showrunners don’t fire entire staffs. It’s not uncommon to ask for the moon and if you get it, great. If you don’t, that’s cool too.
just sayin’
Possible that AMC offered some horrible, “the economy sucks, we’re poor, we have a template we can’t break or will be in trouble with our model” five percent bump? Because if they did, then CAA would have to go back at a ridiculous high number so someone could have a conversation that goes a little like this, “Are we both going to keep being ridiculous? Or are we going to stop throwing around crazy high and crazy low numbers and talk about a number we can all live with?
Hmm, does MW really _want_ to stay with MM? Surely he knows the economics of the situation make his request near-impossible. I know this sounds way-out, but given that MW is a self-admitted perfectionist (and worries about not being able to top the show’s previous success,) couldn’t his asking for this amount of money be his way of trying for a win-win? He (and/or MM) get to go out on a high note due to Lionsgate/AMC–and he saves himself the grief of the show’s possible future decline…and he being blamed for it.
“The Wire is Barack Obama’s favorite show of all time. He’s one smart mofo.”
It’s been reported that the Season 1 DVD set of MAD MEN has been seen in BO’s collection on his campaign plane.
Sorry, Nikki. The Sopranos averaged three or four MILLION viewers a week. MADMEN not even half that. Anyone who rails against executive compensation not linked to performance should praise Lionsgate. MADMEN is not major hit and Weiner does not merit that kind of compensation. You folks in Hollywood are just TOO DAMN RICH! I’m sure Obama will fix that, though.
I love the show. First season was great. Second season very good (but enough already with watching Draper have affair after affair–we get it!)
Anyway, $10 million seems nuts. Yes, the show is much buzzed about and has collected well-deserved awards. Still, you can’t take an emmy to the bank. And with numbers this low, it is tough to make the numbers work. Why not tie his salary to ratings?
If the show continues to grow, increase his pay.
I will be sad if he is replaced, but even sadder if he is allowed to extort a huge paycheck for a show with so few viewers.
Lions Gate is a business not a non-profit arts organization.
As a writer and having worked for two Academy Award winning writer directors, saying that MW is disorganized is a peculiar comment.
“Organized” and “writer” don’t belong in the same sentence.
Once you are “organized” there is no genius, just formula.
Who cares about the pregnancy thing in both seasons? THAT WAS THE PROBLEM back then. Whatever messy organizational structure MW has, he needs to keep so we can keep on enjoying more seasons of MAD MEN.
Don’t forget MW, agents can’t write, they only wish they could. They really have NO IDEA what we do or how we do it or how it really gets down on paper. They are work for us, remember? Do what’s best for the show for all our sakes.
The first season of Sex in The City on DVD, in it’s first year of sale, generated 500 million for HBO studios. 500 million. One season in one year.
Mad Men is going to make boatloads of cash for Lionsgate from here on in and already has from DVD releases. And there will be the syndication sale and the foreign sales.
The Mad Men ratings should reflect not the 1.75 on the first airings but ALL the ratings for the night as it is repeated.
Matt Weiner has worked for close to basic cable scale for two years on Mad Men. He won the Emmy for Best Series (the first time ever for basic cable) and put a so so basic cable network on the map.
His agents request is not over the top. Yes AMC took a chance on him. But he makes that show on a seven day shoot for a small budget and he has worked a miracle for that network and studio.
It’s too bad the show isn’t on HBO because they wouldn’t hesitate to pay Matt what he is worth. They understand the value of a vision.
Yes Matt needs to learn to work a writers room better. David Kelley and Aaron Sorkin trampled writers and hog credits too. It is next to impossible to share your vision with other writers. And when you produce a show on a seven day schedule for that budget you get crazy. It takes years off your life. Matt could write a first draft of a feature that goes in the trash can and be paid his entire salary for a season of Mad Men. And he could sit in his robe all day.
Why shouldn’t he be paid his worth? His product will make 100’s of millions for Lionsgate and AMC. And creatives should not snipe at him. His work has opened the door for us to pitch ideas that are not the same old. When someone succeeds like Matt or Shonda or Mark Cherry we should all unite and support them. As creatives let’s not behave like democrats.
This is just another example of felt/burns trying to do things on the cheap. That is why they hire Dane Cook instead of real stars. It is the single strategy that has made them successful, but also keeps them a low-rent studio that will never be worth much more than they are.
Ahhh and let’s not forget the time AMC decides to run the new episodes – 10PM on Sunday nights – beginning in the JULY???!!!. I bet if they had the balls to run it at 10PM on Thursday and start it in the Fall – they would get twice the viewers. ER is gone next year folks. Grey’s Anatomy has jumped the shark. The networks can only do family reality shows starting at 8PM / 9PM and people are begging for well written stuff.
Next season will be big and more than likely will have to include using the assassination of JFK, not exactly 14 months but you can’t go forward with these characters without incorporating that event into the storyline. With an event like that – in someone else’s hands – you could easily fuck the show up.
Lionsgate should give CAA and Weiner what they want or at least a major share in the DVD sales. The fact that Weiner could write his own contract negotiation in the storyline ie Don to Duck, shows what a master writer he is. They will make their money back.
In Europe Mad Men is not a small cable show. It is Emmy winning hit and it’s aired right next to Lost and House and so on. So I guess whoever gets the foreign money gets about the same amount as he’d get for the much bigger shows.
AMC? Isn’t that the channel that shows the 2 peters (Guber & Bart)talking out of their asses re: their former careers?
W/out MAD MEN that’s all AMC will ever aspire to.
W/ all due respect to Bryan Cranston.
Seriously, Lionsgate/AMC, open up the change purse. Stop w/ the pissin’ contest. You don’t want to end up like Harvey Weinstein (re: Project Runway), do ya?