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How much does Williams make per score?


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Actually, it's $1 million.  The highest in the business.

"Elfman is among the highest-paid composers, getting roughly $1.5 million per film, plus box office bonuses." (http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/goldstein/cl-et-gold24jun24,0,4189774.story?coll=cl-home-more-channels)

Either Danny Elfman makes more than John Williams, or you're mistaken.

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He used to make a million, it's more now and he gets percentages on the films too which means he makes ALOT more.

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Record deals are a whole other source of income. After all, scores don't HAVE to be released on CD. He gets paid seperately for producing the soundtrack albums.

Plus there are royalties. Orchestras all over the world play his music, I'm sure he gets paid for that as well.

So, I think the question is, what is JWs base fee for composing a film score? What do they pay him to spend a month or two working on the music? With film budgets being in the $50-$200 million range (depending on if its a special effects/action movie), a million or two going toward the music sounds about right...?? Just a guess.

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Actually, it's $1 million.  The highest in the business.

While I don't know exact figures, I would think that 1 million is kinda low. A third or even fourth rate composer makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in composers fee for a studio motion picture (and maybe even that much for high budget indie films). Therefore, I estimate that JW makes about $3 million for his largest films and probably $1 million for his smallest, and that has only been probably within the last 15 years or so. Add in royalties and licensing, and quickly find out that he makes a lot more. You know all of those JW CDs you have? Guess how much that contributes to his income!

Then again, I could be way off. I'm only estimating.

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It wasn't that long ago he was associated with more money making films than any person in Hollywood, composer, actor, director or otherwise. Its probably still the case. So from that point of view, he deserves a huge salary and a hefty % of the cut. Not that he can take credit for it completely but if he were making only a million, that would be a huge bargain for any studio, particularly for a big-budget release where they seemingly are willing to spend a million dollars on a 3 second shot of 15 cars exploding into a building or something like that.

- Adam

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Seems like just a couple of years ago in an interview, as old as '99, I heard he charged $1M. At the time, maybe I figured that was the highest in the business, but maybe it's a modest price after all? Although, being that "cheap", I can't imagine him not having anything to score this year. Then again, he's not forced to score movies...

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I personally think his rate varies from film to film. Why would a small budget film like Stepmom, need to pay 1 to 3 million for John's services?

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Anyway, he must be rich as hell.

I'm afraid James Horner is better paid for a score than John Williams. It's not just my guess, I think I have read it somewhere but cannot figure out where at the moment. I'll try to be more specific ASAP. I remember having gone utterly mad about that because it was short after I've fallen in love with JW's music (1997) and it must have been around the time of Titanic that they mentioned Williams' and Horner's earnings per a score. True is that JW might be richer considering his total incomes, but as far as single scores are considered, Horner was likely in the hefty lead at least until 1997 or 1998... :)

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I personally think his rate varies from film to film.  Why would a small budget film like Stepmom, need to pay 1 to 3 million for John's services?

Ever since Jim Carrey's $20+ million for a Cable Guy, I woudlb't be surprised for no such differences to be made nowadays.

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The $1 million salary figure dates from more then 12-15 years ago. Hollywood prices have doubled and tripled since then. Especially with the Schindler's List Academy Award in his hands he's entitled to ask another number. 3 million, at least, is probably a realistic estimate.

----------------

Alex Cremers

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I read recently in a film scoring book that composers usually make about $1 for every soundtrack album sold and the album producer gets about another $1. So Williams then gets about $2 per album sold since he produces most of his oundtrack albums. From what I understand this is automatic. The recording industry or union or whatever sends out the checks once a month or once a year. Composers also get paid an enormous amount when their music is heard on TV. There are fixed rates. So say for example Jaws is airing for the umpteenth time on TNT. Williams would get a check the size of which depends on the number and length of the cues in the movie. Horner probably made more from Titanic airing on NBC than he actually did for scoring the film. It's an amazing amount of money. Although it's illegal in the US, I think that overseas theatrical airings are treated like TV airings so that the composer gets some money everytime the movie plays at the cinema. At any rate, the point I'm trying to make is that JW's base scoring fee is most likely trivial compared to the money he rakes in for royalties for TV airings, concert performances, publishing, and soundtrack sales.

Dole

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