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UPDATE: David McCallum To Be Back on ‘NCIS’
PREVIOUS: EXCLUSIVE: CBS’ top drama series, NCIS, will no doubt be back for an eighth season, but what about the cast? While star Mark Harmon, who is also a producer on the show, is locked in, the four other original cast members, Michael Weatherly, Pauley Perrette, David McCallum and Sean Murray (he started off as a recurring in season 1), have no deals beyond the current seventh season. And from what I hear, talks between the actors and CBS TV Studios, which produces the hit procedural, have slowed down with the two sides far apart on the money. My understanding is that the studio went to the cast members with pretty low-ball offers, leading to the impasse.
At least a couple of the quartet are making well under $100,000 per episode, which is low for a hit seven-year-old series. I hear co-star Cote de Pablo, whose deal is up after next season, also has been approached with a similar low offer to extend her contract. In addition to Harmon and de Pablo, also set to return is regular Rocky Carroll, who also has a deal in place for next season. He joined the show in Season 5 as a recurring and was upped to regular the following year.
The NCIS cast renegotiation, which is not unusual for actors on a high-profile show, adds to another talent uncertainty at CBS regarding a top series, the one surrounding Charlie Sheen’s on Two and a Half Men. Check out my update on the Sheen/Two and a Half Men situation.
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i’ve heard that cbs won’t budge a nickel on the cast even though this is their biggest hit. 20m viewers each wk and they pay like it’s a middling cable show. Silly. They should walk and see how that goes.
NCIS,
ITS THE BEST SHOW ON TV,WHY IS CBS PLAYING GAMES WITH THESE PEOPLE.
Please sign all the cast members. NCIS is the best show on TV – It needs the cast as it is – They are the best and it all gels together.
Barb
The reason I love the show, and it’s my favorite, is because of the interaction of the main characters, if you change them or they don’t come back I won’t watch it, even if it’s only one that doesn’t return.
How could you do that to them? I can not imagine the show without them.
Please pay them what they deserve.
PLEASE DON’T LET THESE FOUR LEAVE, THIS WOULD BE A BIG MISTAKE. I HAVE BEEN WATCHING THIS SHOW AS LONG AS IT HAS BEEN ON. I HAVE ALL THE DVDS AND CAN’T WAIT FOR NUMBER SEVEN. IF THESE FOR ARE NOT GOING TO BE RETURNING,THIS WOULD BE A BIG MISTAKE. THIS GROUP ALONG WITH HARMAN HAVE BEEN WHY THIS SHOW HAS LASTED SO LONG. THIER LIKE FAMILY TO EACH OTHER IN THE SHOW. IF YOU CAN’T COME TO A RESONABLE OFFER AND THEY LEAVE IT’S NOT GOING TO BE WORTH WATCHING. THEY EACH BRING THAT CERTAIN SPARK TO THE SHOW AND WITHOUT IT, IT DOESN’T LIGHT. LIKE THIS LAST SHOW TUESDAY MAY 11.2010 IT WAS GREAT AND AT THE END I EVEN HAD TEARS IN MY EYES WHEN THE LAST PART CAME ON WITH GIBBS AND ABBY. PLEASE DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO KEEP THEM ON THE SHOW. ALL OF THEM MAKE THE SHOW AND ARW GREAT. PLEASE. NCIS IS A GREAT SHOW AND EVERYONE WORKS GREAT TOGETHER. IT WOULD BE ASHAME TO LET THESE GREAT ACTORS AND ACTRESS GO AFTER ALL THEY HAVE GIVEN TO THE SHOW. PLEASE WORK SOMETHING OUT.
MURIEL
This show may have outgrown CBS, anyway. They should move to FOX !!
ps. We just cancelled our movie channels because we rarely watch them. My 11 year old watches, Michael Landon’s,”Highway to Heaven”, and all of our family members enjoy watching “NCIS”, together. Hope you continue!The actors are all,Great!
CBS better consider that the success of most of their shows like NCIS is due to the ensemble, not just the lead. A lot of the TV I still watch is on CBS and it is because they have done well in creating shows with characters and relationships I care about watching. Mess that up and you lose me and I think a lot of other viewers as well. When you have a cast with such good chemistry onscreen, it would be absolutely foolish to mess with that.
I agree I watch exactly two shows and that is due to the chemistry of the Characters of the Show
NCIS and NCIS LA are the only reason I turn on my TV.
Change These Actors and you lose me. PAY THEM they deserve the big bucks.
Don’t fool around with something that is great and is working. It seams a show gets great ratings and awards and right a way some dummy sitting behind a desk making too much money for what he/her is worth and they want to change. That is not what top rating mean. It means it is good and stay with what you have.
This cast works so well together. It would be a shame to lose any of them. Without Abby and Tony the show would not be the same at all. I more than likely would not watch it and right now it is my favorite show.
I agree is Tony goes, so do I.
you are right we love watching ncis here at home with the cast as is if cbs does not sign them to return we will no longer be watching ncis
$100,000 per episode not enough? They should be happy to be employed. Except for Harmon and the genius McCallum, nobody had ever heard of them until Don Bellasario gave them this break. Believe me this show would carry on without them just fine.
Agree. These actors are forgettable outside of NCIS. This David Caruso or Jimmy Smits
michael weatherly forgettable, i don’t think so…..he’ll be fine regardless.
Hellooooo, why does it a threat to leave a high rating show as NCIS to make the pot of money they have to quit….The actor/actresses have made enough to get them through without bulling the producers into more money…So now I will not watch anymore NCIS once you change the players…I really like the show, so you people that made millions from the show just sit back and enjoy their talent and not meet pay scale of other top rating actor/actresses like Gibbs, Tony, Abby, Diva,and Ducky…I was looking forward to the new season…I will just watch CIS NY….Mary
They were not given a damn thing!
They earned their roles, performing multiple daisy chain auditions for superfluous studio/network apparatchiks, and deserve to share in the financial success of the show.
Given the number of people that are regularly entertained by this fine cohort of stars, especially Michael Weatherly, Pauley Perret and David McCallum, I’m shocked that they aren’t paid MORE.
Take that ensemble away and I’m taking my viewing elsewhere CBS. Like it or not the viewres are the end consumer as we are the ones who make the “ratings” happen and messing with NCIS and the team is a sure fire way to lose viewers.
Finicial crisis be d*mned, how about the marketing exects take the pay cut? What do they produce? I’m fairly certain that one of two less and no one would notice but take out Tony, Ducky or Abby and I’m gone.
Actor earn their pay and it is the actor who carry the show. Great actors can carry a less than stellar script but poor actors, even with the best scripts (un-reality TV not withstanding) and you have a recipe for no ratings.
Come on CBS pay these people who are the reason you have the number 1 scripted show.
I agree, you loose any of this cast, I am gone too. It is the actors and good story line that make the show and they should share in the success of the show…..they’ve earned it. Pay them!!
I do not really believe that any of the cast of NCIS wants to leave the show. All of them have made it clear that they consider themselves family,both on and off the set. Should they be paid more?
ABSOLUTELY !!
The characters make the show, and the actors (along with the writers) make the characters. But….
THE ACTORS BRING THE CHARACTERS TO LIFE! PAY THEM PROPERLY.
This is really a no-brainer. The show makes a lot of money; enough to
maintain the high production values it has AND give the actors what they deserve, which is a lot more than they are getting.
We as fans cannot stand the idea of being without any of them. Speaking personally ,although I have never met any of them, I feel as if they are family. I have never felt this way about any TV show and its cast. That is saying something, as I am 51 years old.
Chuck
I’m with you. If Tony, Abby, Ducky, or even Ziva go, I’m gone. Not just if they all go, but if any ONE of them go, I will not be watching NCIS anymore.
I’m with you! If any of them go, I go! One more example of using people to make a buck! Don’t ya just love the Studios??? Lets talk about how much they make off of advertising alone from these actors for each episode then come back and tell me it’s fair.!
I second that..this is an ensemble cast with great chemistry and comic timing .. why would CBS shoot itself in the foot by messing with a winner both in prime time and on cable reruns????
NCIS is the cast. Without their idiosyncratic charactor portrayals the show will be just another run-of-the-mill action/adventure show.
What a crock. They are as interchangeable as underwear.
FUCK OFF
I’m with the majority here. The interaction of these particular actors is irreplaceable. I won’t be watching if any one of them leaves. I also agree that they should be rewarded for being on CBS’s highest-rated scripted show.
It’s certainly true, Anthony, that it’s the talented cast and their interactions that have made NCIS – not the concept or the plots. It’s a shame that the writers have forgotten that since mid- season 6. We can only hope that we see a return to the wonderful cast chemistry, quirky humor and team interactions that made this show so unique and special in the early days. Weatherly in particular is enormously popular and his chemistry with Harmon is what originally made this show so successful. Something else that the writers seem to have forgotten of late. I hope Weatherly gets his payrise – he is a large part of the reason for NCIS’s success, and he deserves it.
They will all die in a terrorist explosion and NCIS will develop new characters. This is how it is done. McGoo is not needed, Abby is needed and the show is gone without Dinozzo, so I hope it gets settled, but who knows…$100,000 an episode sounds like tons, but it isn’t considering it is the 7th or 8th season.
Chemistry counts a great deal and whatever you think, this show needs the complete ensemble. Keep the crew together.
I agree……..This is my favorite show and it takes the whole team to be such a hit. No one was happy with the show when the team was split up before. If they leave I and a lot of my friends will finding a new favorite show.
What dream world are you living in? It’s the entire cast, so what if some of the others weren’t heard of before. What matters is they are known now!!!!
I don’t care if some people haven’t heard of some of these actors. They make the show come alive and whoever cast them should be applauded. The writers are great and humor integrated in a crime procedural is brilliant. I used to watch Law and Order (which is so bland) and I just can’t watch it anymore. Nothing new. NCIS is a trip and there are always surprises you never expect. I love all the variations in the characters. You never now what to expect. Keep them all. They deserve a raise. CBS has a good thing going here.
I wouldn’t bank on it. We make sure we are in front of the tv when NCIS is on because we love each and everyone of the cast. It was hard to lose Kate, but we love Zeeva as well. Only show ever that I have enjoyed watching reruns. leave them intact.
I second that!
The idiots at CBS better take a look at NBC, and see the mess those idiots made with their lineup, and they need to bring as many of these people back as possible. Hopefully, all of them.
micheal weatherly was very well known for Dark Angel…
Pay up CBS. It’s an ensemble show. And NCIS lover, I had definitely heard of Michael Weatherly before NCIS. And this show would not carry on without the rest of the ensemble cast just fine. It’s all about chemistry. If you want NCIS without chemistry watch NCIS LA.
Which is why I don’t watch NCIS LA. Hate that show.
It’s the chemistry between entire cast that makes this show. CBS is most likely lowballing in order to make an offer to the disgustingly overpaid Charlie Sheen.
Agreed about Charlie Sheen. As far as the NCIS whiners, $100,000 not enough to show up 2 or 3 days a week, wear designer clothes provided by someone else, saying dialog written for you by someone else? Give me a break. These people would dry up and blow away if they had to actually work for a living.
Try five to seven days a week (and sometimes the weeks run into each other without a break) for anywhere from 14 to 20 hours a day. The schedule is grueling and it doesn’t matter if you’re sick or hurt, if you’re not hospitalized, you better be there and be ready to work (and sometimes you’re there straight from the hospital). Even your “time off” is often taken up with promoting the show (they’re contracted for that sort of thing). It’s physically demanding work, mentally challenging, emotionally exhausting and the schedule is one that most people in “real jobs” would never consider working no matter how much money someone offered them.
People look at creative products like tv shows, movies, books and sneer, saying it’s not worth it; it’s “just entertainment”. Back when I was working two full time jobs or when I was putting myself through college on one full time job and I had precious few hours to call my own, those “worthless” products of someone’s creativity are what kept me going. Being able to sit down and forget the worry about where I was going to get the money for school books or new tires or to pay the doctor because a tv show or a book let me escape for a while was priceless. These folks work hard, they should be paid according to their industry’s standards just like a plumber or an electrician or a programmer would expect to be paid according to *their* industries’ standards.
Anonymous, what are you smoking? 7 days a week? 20 hours a day? From the hospital? Maybe the crew, but definetely not the actors.
Yes, the actors. Production schedules must be met. The actors are the only ones who can’t be replaced on the fly. There are sometimes quick rewrites to shift lines around when an actor is working sick (ex. Weatherly was very sick during Cover Story and I seem to remember there were a few minor changes to accommodate that. He was still there working just didn’t have quite as many lines). Bellasario was ousted because of the 20 hour work days, day in and day out, the actors were subjected to.
fire ‘em all. Greedy bastard actors. So many unemployed talents waiting to take their places. Don’ t let the door hit them on their lazy, believing their own press asses! BYE!
But you don’t mind if the execs keep all the money on a show that’s popular because of the on screen talent?
Yet they still make far less than most football players. We should get rid of them, too.
A lot of money? Yes to most of us. Do actors get paid too much? Yes. But it’s not like your tax dollars are paying for it. I guess you could say high prices pay for it, but only because the advertisers decide to pay high amounts of money on ads.
If you’re working a job and your company gets recognition and lots of profits because of YOU, wouldn’t you expect something in return? A raise, at least? Perhaps a bonus? I guess you wouldn’t mind taking a large pay cut so one of your coworkers slated for layoff could keep their job, then, right?
Greedy bastards? How many hours a day do you work? It’s hard work and long hours (perhaps 12 to 16 hours a day). Football players don’t work all year long and they are way overpaid. Try acting sometime. What a surprise you will get. The enjoyment I get from this show makes my day. This is a TV series that is run like a movie production. Get real or just watch any dumbed down TV (then you don’t have to pay attention and think)
Hold that line, CBS/Paramount. As an NCIS fan I enjoy the twisty scripts, the franchise, the tone, and Mark Harmon who plays the only credible military character in the show.
The Weatherly-Murray wisecracking would work better with a male-female combo anyway. Weatherly’s narcissism is unbecoming, Murray is a dull foil, and Perrette a cartoon. NCIS should learn from Law & Order: rotating crops can keep the soil fertile for a long time.
Maybe throw McCallum a few more bucks, because if there are still Illya Kuryakin fans out there, you know they’re watching CBS.
Actually the Weatherly-Murray wisecracking works so much better than the Weatherly-dePablo anvils that have been foiced upon us this season. Guess what, some of us rather like watching great buddy-buddy action.
Weatherly’s narcissism? Aren’t you talking about DiNozzo’s narcissism? Which Michael is plays exceptionally well but he has to work with the scripts he’s given. DiNozzo, Abby, Ziva and McGeek are fast being turned into caricatures of their orginal characters in the same way the current Homer Simpson is a major characture of the original; apparently it’s not enough for us to know these characters are quirky in some way but we must be reminded by steadily worsening examples. See Smart Tony Frat boyish Season 1 versus major frat in Season 7.
Maybe getting the writers to read tyhe show bible and stiking to canon might work just as well for keeping the ground fertile.
Pay the team that plays well together; the viewers will come. ~.^
Just Jeanette, I believe you meant “foist” or “foisted,” not “foiced.”
Sounds like you’re confusing the actor (Weatherly) with his character (Tony). Though Tony isn’t a narcissist, either. If you listen to/read/watch Weatherly’s interviews, you’d see he’s one of the most self-effacing actors we’ve seen in a long time. It’s a trait he shares with most of this cast. Wanting to be paid the going rate for the job you’re in (and your experience and so on and so forth) is normal no matter what industry you’re in.
As to wishing the Tony-McGee interactions were between a man and a woman, please. NCIS has proven over and over again that they not only can’t write women worth a darn, and if the Tony – Ziva interactions are any indication, they should never put a man and a woman in the same scene ever, ever, *EVER* again. Don’t blame the cast for the show runner’s screw ups. Shane Brennan’s the one who is responsible for the scripts the actors are handed. The cast can only come so close to making silk purses out of the sows’ ears they’re given to work with.
Yes and no. The A-Team (if you believe Wiki) pulled in 20 million in 83-84, a much smaller population. The Beverly Hillbillies pulled in an astonishing 60 million viewers during it’s peak, with about 100 fewer million people in the population. The Superbowl can draw up to 100 million viewers.
So yes, NCIS *IS* the top rated scripted show on TV. The problem is, no, it does not compare to other shows in decades past, in terms of absolute or percentage of population numbers. Likely because TV has become less inclusive, particularly broadcast TV.
Yes, cable fracturing is a part of it, but much of it is that TV is just too feminized. I’d suspect that if TV particularly network TV had less of a bad taste for potential male viewers, NCIS could get at least 30 million viewers, and possibly more. That’s just my guess.
If that’s your view, whiskey, it’s clear that you know very little about television. Males 18 to 45 are the golden demographic in television; women are only considered valuable as viewers in daytime tv. A show that pulls this demo is going to get the advertisers, even if it’s not in the top five in overall ratings. As for dismissing cable as a factor in network’s ratings–do you seriously believe that a show that could pull in 60 million viewers when it only had two other networks to compete against could do the same today with hundreds of competitors, not to mention all the other viewing options that exist today? As a unique program, the Superbowl is an outlier and therefore irrelevant to a discussion of daily tv programming.
Feminized. Seriously?
You forgot mention that whiskey must have had one too many while writing his comment. LOL.
Another whiskey post…another chapter in a seemingly unending rant about the feminization/emasculation/gaying of America.
And, as usual, you speak with such authority but with no real thought behind it. You’re not even an intellectually rigorous bigot. Here’s a clue: truly smart people of all political viewpoints don’t pepper their arguments with “likely,” “I’d suspect” or “That’s just my guess.”
Oh, if only we could go back to the days of the one TV/three network family. When men were men…and women and gays knew their place.
Another reason to hate Hollywood. Thought Moonves referred to the two NCIS shows as a “billion-dollar property.” Now they’re not worth more than $100k per episode? From where I sit, the offer is despicable.
After seeing 2 episodes of NCIS LA I’m certain CBS has no idea what makes NCIS work. The best line in NCIS’ season opener was Tony’s description of Gibbs as a “functional mute”. Over the years Gibbs has said less and less. It got so bad in season 6 I thought CBS was paying Harmon by the word. Things have loosened up a bit this season, but the show is the ensemble reacting to Gibbs. Without the ensemble I’ll ignore NCIS the way I do NCIS LA.
I AGREE ! FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG LONG TIME THERE IS A SHOW THAT WE ACTUALLY CANCEL EVERYTHING TO SET AS A FAMILY AND WATCH! I CANT REMEMBER THE LAST TIME A CAST OF CHARACTERS INTERACTED SO WELL AND ACTUALLY KEEPS YOU GLUED TO THE SPOT TO SEE WHATS COMING NEXT…WE EVEN KEEP THE RE-RUNS ON EVERYDAY ..ITS LIKE HAVING A FRIENDS OVER AND LISTENING TO THEM CHAT WHILE I DO THE HOUSEWORK ECT. BEATS THE CRAP OUTTA 100 PERCENT OF THE OTHER NONESENSE ON THE TUBE THESE DAYS!WE ALSO HAVE TRIED TO GET INTERESTED IN THE NCIS LA BUT IT JUST DOESNT GRAB US LIKE THE REAL THING!! HOPE THE CAST OF NCIS ARE ALWAYS TOGETHER …OTHERWISE WE TOO WOULD SHUT IT DOWN AND GO BACK TO RADIO….
I love the ensemble work on NCIS. I love the cast. Although they’ve had a disturbing tendency to kill off strong female cast members in the past. What are they going to do if they don’t sign? Blow all of them up? Pay up CBS or else I go back to my playstation. It’s not the plot lines CBS, which are forgettable, it’s the cast, stupid.
I’d rather he didn’t, but McCallum can go. I mean honestly, Ducky doesn’t do a damned thing but be occasionally cute (like once every 3-4 episodes). His senile mother isn’t even around any more to make him slightly interesting. I hoped they would go somewhere with his new girlfriend, but they dropped the ball on that. So we’ere stuck with Ducky: most boring guy on the planet. McCallum has even sounded bored with every line he’s uttered in the past 2 seasons.
But really, if anyone other than that goes, then so will I most likely, especially Pauley. There really isn’t an excuse for CBS to stick at $100k. That’s chump change.
Funny, I never thought CBS had the same dumb morons as NBC does but I could be wrong. Forking over salacious amounts of cash to people like Charlie Sheen (no offense Charlie–but you really are not worth the money they are paying you) and not taking care of the cast of a well liked and highly watched show–is criminal. Moonves is obviously having a “senior” moment…….
The irony here is that the writers know NCIS is an ensemble show; in particular, the scripts this season have deliberately pushed the chemistry and relationships between Tony & Ziva and (to a lesser extent) between McGee and Abby. Which increases the pressure on both sides to reach an agreement, because this late in the current season, it’s going to be next to impossible to resolve that set of character arcs if the actors end up walking away — and if some or all of them don’t return, the fan base is definitely not going to be happy about it.
Based strictly on what I’m reading here, it sounds as if CBS either dropped the ball by leaving contract negotiations till the last possible moment (thereby giving the show’s writers no chance to craft a graceful exit script), or is attempting to use the short time-frame to pressure the actors into accepting sub-par financial terms. The former suggests inept oversight; the latter suggests excessively Scrooge-like management tactics (and might just backfire, because my guess is that all four could land other series work without great difficulty — although McCallum might prefer not to, and Murray might have to jump from drama to a sitcom).
As an aside, I tend to agree that NCIS:LA isn’t clicking as an ensemble show the way NCIS has. From what I’ve seen, its problem is that the LA ensemble is simply too large, so that no one save O’Donnell, LL Cool J, and Linda Hunt have had enough screen time for their characters to bond with viewers. (This is precisely the same mistake the Knight Rider reboot made — instead of concentrating on their lead the way the original show did, the producers tried to build a CSI-like ensemble cast back at the Secret Base, and ended up with incredibly cluttered scripts.)
With problems on the TWO AND A HALF MEN front, do they really need to have problems with the NCIS cast,too?
CSI is still recovering from the loss of William Peterson!
After Grissom left CSI, I stopped watching, and haven’t been back. I do not want that to happen with NCIS, which I have watched from the beginning, back when it started as a spin-off from JAG.
Looks like CBS is bluffing a pair of two’s against four of a kind.
I hope they get what they deserve as they’ve worked hard to get to where they are. Who else is going to go up against AI every Tuesday?
If you don’t like the show than why the hell are reading this?
I second that…if you don’t care, then why are you even reading this, much less respnding. Based on the articulation and high level of sophistication of your comments, you should be persuing your more intellectual indeavors.
Michael Weatherly, along with Mark Harmon, make NCIS for me. I wouldn’t watch without either one of them so I hope CBS pays them what they are worth.
I am also a huge David McCallum fan and love Pauley Perrette. They make up the original NCIS four and are central to the show for me. I think the show could stand losing any of those who came later, like Sean Murray, Cote de Pablo and Rocky Carroll, but those original four are really special and have the most amazing chemistry.
The relationship between Gibbs and Tony is the core of NCIS. Without that, there’s no show. To a slightly, very slightly, lesser degree, Ducky’s and Abby’s relationships with the two of them *are* the show. Much as I enjoyed McGee before the writers decided to make him an arrogant jerk (which seems to be receding, thankfully) the show *could* manage without him. Frankly, though, the only character the show *should* lose is Ziva, but it looks like CdP isn’t one of the ones with contract woes for next season.
Maybe they should fire Shane Brennan and half the writers (not to mention a dozen marketing dweebs or so) and see if they can’t use those funds to make up the salary short fall. I’m sure they could find a deaf and blind donkey somewhere in LA who could run the show better than Brennan. I’m sure there are also dozens of writers out there who could manage to write these characters better than we’ve seen in the past couple of years.
If CBS runs Weatherly and Perrette off because they won’t pay them NCIS is dead.
But then, think of how much they’ll be able to save when NCIS: LA tanks. Talk about a show that’s not worth the money they pay for it.
I’d agree about Ziva from a character-arc perspective. As much as I like Cote de Pablo’s screen presence and the innately paradoxical aspects of Ziva’s background, I think the show has done as much as it can to develop her character. The arc that broke her ties to Mossad was strong, dramatically charged storytelling — but it also greatly reduced her usefulness to the ongoing series. Also, as someone noted above, it would be nice to see them give Ziva a graceful and upbeat exit, in contrast to their handling of the Kate Todd and Director Shepherd characters.
That said, I think the show could survive losing any one of DiNozzo, McGee, Ducky, Abby, or Ziva (and if I were doing the exit script, the only one of those I’d write out via death would be Abby, because story-wise, that’s the only way you could pry her out of her lab for good — well, maybe short of introducing her to Doctor Who as a new companion, and that you could only get away with in fanfiction).
But if they lose two or more of the core ensemble, no matter how they write them out, I think the show is toast.
I like everyone else I like ncis. If I was working on ncis I
would not complain too much about making $100,000 dollars per
show. Right now I am making $2.75 and hour. A $100,000 sounds
good to me. I would’nt mind making 100,000 dollars. I do hope
that the stars can come aggrement on the money that they want. the
show would not be the same if the got other stars to replace them.
all the stars make that show. I love all the charactors on that
show. fay wiseman
Just remember what CBS did to JAG and David James Elliott? However in this case Mark Harmon has a contract for next season and the ensemble doesn’t. In DJE’s case he was the one out of contract and they didn’t negotiate or offer another contract because “they couldn’t afford him”! Easy way out – cancel the show…
“As an aside, I tend to agree that NCIS:LA isn’t clicking as an ensemble show the way NCIS has.”
NCIS: LA wouldn’t have lasted half-a-season if it had been given any other timeslot. It has a lot of problems, chief of which is that it’s not nearly as distinctive as its parent show. NCIS’s cases are rooted in a military setting and deal in great part with military life, which is one of the main reasons for its success. NCIS: LA’s cases…eh, not so much. Not nearly enough, in fact. They come across as generic and “I can see this anywhere.”
“From what I’ve seen, its problem is that the LA ensemble is simply too large, so that no one save O’Donnell, LL Cool J, and Linda Hunt have had enough screen time for their characters to bond with viewers.”
As well, the characters basically are just not that interesting. LL and Hunt are reasonably entertaining because they bring a lot of warmth/charisma to their roles. But the others are either colorless, forgettable, or (in the case of the team shrink) “Is there a good reason you’re here at all?” From the sound of things, the main showrunner is juggling both NCISes, and that kinda workload has gotta be tough.
From the sound of things, the main showrunner is juggling both NCISes, and that kinda workload has gotta be tough.
That’s an excellent point. It’s certainly likely to be relevant to the writing complaints some folk have been voicing above. And — depending on how Brennan and company have been delegating certain parts of the showrunning task-set — it just might also be part of the reason that cast contract negotiations were apparently left till so late in the season.
And check my memory of something…didn’t Don Bellisario’s exit from active showrunning on NCIS also stem from his attempt to develop/showrun a second project at one and the same time?
I am not terribly interested in the salary fights of any of these actors. A salary of over $2M per year (22-25 episodes) is nothing to sneeze at.
I have recently started to watch the show and have watched the previous seasons on DVD. It is a good ensemble cast, though the constant invasions of privacy, shootings and explosions make non-Americans wonder about the US.
The actors might want to remember that being on this show is like a lottery win. Each year, they earn over 50 times what an average person earns. Once the ride is over, they may never get paid like this again.
I will leave it to others to assess Weatherly’s abilities, but a quick search on him shows he is Bellassario’s son-in-law.
Weatherly is not Bellisario’s son in law, Uncle Bernie. I have no idea where you got that idea from. Sean Murray is Bellisario’s stepson though. But as Donald Bellisario left the show at the end of season 4 I have no idea what relevance that has to the topic currently under discussion.
No he’s not. Sean Murray, however, is Bellasario’s step-son. Perhaps that’s what you meant?
Correction: Sean Murray (McGee) is Bellisario’s step-son. Weatherly’s wife is an oncologist.
“I will leave it to others to assess Weatherly’s abilities, but a quick search on him shows he is Bellassario’s son-in-law.”
If he is the S-O-L of Bellassario at the moment, I believe it’s a very recent thing. A friend of mine was invited to Weatherly’s wedding a few months ago.