Bada-Bye-Bye: Why HBO Is Whacking Its Golden Goose

How could it have come to this? According to HBO it’s all down to the greed of the Sopranos star and the duplicity of his representatives. But with all the might of Time-Warner at their disposal, it’s been relatively easy for the cabler to make sure that the story that hits the media is the one they want told. And as with all arguments, there’s another side. Not that anyone has been looking very hard for it (except us, of course). Perhaps because it’s seen as just another tinseltown tiff that will blow over in due course. But blow-ups like the current HBO-Gandolfini scuffle give the rest of us a brief glimpse of how Hollywood really works, how careers are made and broken, and how multimillion dollar conglomerates can fall victim to petty jealousies and feuds.

Needless to say, it didn’t actually start last week. The trouble goes all the way back to the beginning when HBO started production on what would become its flagship show. The story of a small-time mobster and his two families quickly caught the public imagination and became a runaway hit, but that didn’t mean that the actors you watched every week were making much money. Notoriously cheap in the payroll department, HBO was paying some of the regular supporting characters less than $10,000 an episode. Even four years into their roles on a hit drama series, some actors have only seen their paychecks increase by 37% (that’s around 9.25% a year – barely over cost-of-living). Factor into that the fact that The Sopranos only shoot 13 episodes a season (as opposed to the 22 of most network shows) and we’re not talking about a lot of cash. Particularly when you take into consideration that those 13 episodes take the same length of time to shoot as 26 episodes of a network show. The casts of Frasier or Friends wouldn’t even get out of bed for the money that the Sopranos gang take home.

After the first season, contract negotiations quickly became annual slugfests as actors tried to get salaries that were at least in the same ballpark as their network colleagues, but even after four seasons of the most successful show the cabler has ever produced, they not only lag far behind, but not a single one has a “back end” deal. (That’s Hollywood-speak for a piece of the action.) HBO, meanwhile is cleaning up, with over $75 million in DVD sales annually, international sales that other shows can only dream of (The Sopranos is a hit in countries as diverse as the UK and Malaysia), and subscription rates that have skyrocketed since the show’s inception. In spite of all the other marketing moolah, subscriptions remain HBO’s main revenue stream and a significant number of their subscribers have pointed out that the only reason they cough up the monthly cash is so that they can watch The Sopranos. Not only that, but when the show enters syndication, the revenues will climb even further as the show has been shooting clean-language, no-nudity versions since episode one, so it is more than ready for prime-time; though the cast won’t see any of that money either as HBO doesn’t pay residuals.

So if paying James Gandolfini (or anyone else) more money isn’t really the issue, what is?

How about personalities? And we’re not talking about the actors here. In spite of everything you may have heard, the people with the really gargantuan egos in this town are not the actors but the executives. In this case the ego in question appears to belong to HBO honcho Chris Albrecht, whose dislike for his biggest star is only exceeded by his loathing for said star’s representatives. This distaste apparently led to the breakdown of negotiations last week not, as HBO has stated, as a result of Gandolfini’s lawsuit, but actually the day before.

The critical day was last Thursday when Gandolfini’s camp reportedly made a counter-offer which purportedly represented a multimillion dollar reduction in their request to HBO. Instead of discussing the issue, however, HBO suddenly pulled all offers off the table and ended the meeting.

The following day Gandolfini filed suit.

Since then things have gone from bad to worse, with HBO bringing in the big guns, in the form of a phalanx of Time-Warner lawyers and publicly attacking Gandolfini personally. All this was set in motion before the actor’s SAG Award win on Sunday night (no-one expected him to win) and his graceful acceptance and thanks to HBO. According to friends, this is typical of a man who, far from being greedy, is known for his generosity to those around him, both cast and crew. Notably, none of his co-workers has come out against him (which should tell the astute observer of the piranha-pool-that-is-Hollywood something), instead calling to let him know that they are rooting for him. Of course, if HBO does eventually succumb and renegotiate his contract, they will probably have to go back to the drawing board with the contracts of the rest of their cast as well.

Even after all this, the Gandolfini camp allegedly reached out again this week with a further reduction in their offer. HBO rejected it out of hand and continued to refuse to negotiate, which can only leave observers wondering if they want to have a fifth season of The Sopranos at all.

As for HBO’s claim that they “made” Gandolfini, a quick visit to imdb.com is all it takes to prove that they can hardly take the credit for that little achievement – the actor had made 20 movies before anyone even heard of The Sopranos. And he’s still making them, though without much help from HBO. Far from “bending over backwards” to accommodate their star’s movie schedule (as they claimed in a story in today’s Daily Variety), the contentious cabler has made even those negotiations a struggle. In what our sources say is only the most recent example of HBO hardball, around Christmas Gandolfini requested a release to shoot Surviving Christmas with Ben Affleck, but HBO refused to release him unless he signed a new contract immediately. If he had done so it would have adversely affected negotiations for the other actors who were then in mid-haggle. In the end it took a personal call to Chris Albrecht from Steven Spielberg, the film’s producer, to get the studio to back off.

According to the Gandolfini camp, far from being unable to reach an agreement, the two sides were in fact reasonably close and should have been able to make a deal. Of course, once HBO filed its countersuit and began bombarding the press with negative Gandolfiniana, that became less and less likely. In an effort to up the pressure, HBO yesterday laid off the crew and postponed the beginning of production on the new season. This morning the most virulent personal attack appeared in Variety. Will there be a fifth season? Your guess is as good as ours. As Gandolfini pointed out on Sunday night when talking about how The Sopranos had changed his life:

“It can change overnight. And when it does, it can get pretty weird.”