“Suck it,” was essentially the reply.
“Business Affairs” – aka lawyers for studios and networks – are tough, ruthless negotiators who don’t know the meaning of the word “compromise.” End of the year bonuses are not calculated by “compromise.”
In the midst of renegotiations, I ran into one of those cheery fellows at some unrelated event. Even out of the context of our deliberations, he was distant and resolute.
“Bruce,” he sneered, “I know it seems like I don’t care about your problems. The truth is, I don’t even care about my wife’s problems, so there’s no way I’m going to care about yours.”
It’s risky to ask a network or studio for a better deal when you’ve already agreed to a worse one. Characters get killed off all the time. Regardless, we approached the powers that be and asked for a better contract.
When a show becomes a hit, there’s a strong argument for the possibility that it’s a hit because of the cast. Story lines and production value aside, the interaction of the characters and the chemistry established by the actors are undeniable factors when it comes to whether a show works or not. Writers, producers and directors will all flip me the bird for saying this, but they can write their own memoirs and state their own cases.
Actors don’t typically make a percentage of profit, so if a show starts making more money the only entities that benefit are the studios, networks and other stakeholders. It may seem greedy, but when you’re one of the forefront faces of the franchise it’s only natural to want a bigger piece of the pie when the pie starts getting bigger. That’s why, around season three, so many lead actors become “producers” and so many supporting characters become dead.
“What money!?” barked the defensive line of negotiators. “You don’t understand. We haven’t gotten the foreign sales back yet. We’re still hemorrhaging money. It’s not in syndication. The license fee doesn’t cover the production cost and we haven’t recouped the DVD money back yet because season one only just came out. So, what are you looking for? You’re looking for nothing.”
Let’s do some math: Burn Notice was made by 20th Century Fox for X million dollars an episode. The USA Network paid a license fee of Y million dollars per episode (approximately half of what the show cost) to air it – and made its money back through advertising revenue. Fox still had to finance the remaining Z million out of its own pocket. Hence the term, “deficit financing.”
Accounting-wise, until Fox made back more than X million dollars per episode from the remaining sources of income (foreign sales, syndication licensing and DVDs) it was in the red – as each production is its own accountable entity.
Therefore, tonally, Business Affairs took our request as something of an affront – a big “ask” at an inappropriate time.
They reminded me, “Bruce, you forgot you signed something that you were perfectly happy with once. Your contract is for seven years.”
After the obligatory pushback of their pushback, they agreed to give me a nominal raise. It wasn’t what I was hoping for, but I signed the updated agreement – thereby accepting their economic sob story at face value.
Literally the next week, I was in London promoting My Name Is Bruce when the trade magazines reported that Jeffrey Donovan had successfully renegotiated his Burn Notice deal – to earn more than twice his original contract.
What the fuck!?
The official Business Affairs recruitment manual.
I had no problem with Donovan. He deserved it. If I were him, I would have said, “You’re killing me with this workload. I’m the stem-to-stern star of this huge show. I do voice-over for the entire episode. I’m in almost every frame, every scene.”
Business Affairs knew, fiscally, that Michael Westen was the one character who couldn’t be replaced. That part I understood. My beef was that instead of being straight up about it, they led me to believe that nobody was getting a raise.
Kicking at the air in my London hotel room, I felt swindled and mentally prepared myself to walk away from Burn Notice. Dialing my lawyer’s number, I paraphrased my complaint: This was an unwarranted decrease in comparative value.
When we started Burn Notice, the rates for each role were X and Y – establishing, in my mind at least, a “pay ratio.” The new math threw everything out of whack. Sam’s role in the series hadn’t diminished – in fact, it had been increasing in screen time.
Business Affairs may have been insulted that I asked for a raise at all, but I was offended that they saw such little relative value in me – and so emphatically.
Normally, I have a good handle on my temper, but this situation pushed my big red button. “I don’t want to play in their sandbox anymore!” I screamed to my lawyer, Bill. “Ask them to release me from my contract. I would like to go elsewhere with my services.”
To keep actors from leaping across corporate tables, we have representatives. They take our knee-jerk rants and physical threats and translate them into rational corporate speak for Business Affairs.
The Fox response was not unexpected in the least. They stated formally, “We are not releasing you from your contract. You have an obligation.” That was rational corporate speak for “Don’t fuck with us.”
The first day of shooting season three was fast approaching and a standoff had created scuttlebutt among the key people of Burn Notice. The e-mails flew: “Dude, are you really gonna bail?”; “Are you serious?”; “What’s your plan?”
I explained to a few folks (Nix and Donovan included) that this wasn’t “about them.” This was about “the suits and my deal.”
Before it got officially ugly, with delayed shooting schedules and lawsuits served, Matt Nix offered a brilliant solution: make a Sam Axe backstory TV movie and pay Bruce out of the Fox TV movie fund, not the Burn Notice account. I thought it was a great idea and agreed to do it.
Nix was able to convince Fox to finance it, but the kicker was: as long as USA agreed to air it. The corporate versions of a snake and a mongoose had to come to their own terms on top of everything else. Eventually, they worked it out and my contractual squabbles were over.
It was a great solution, not only because it resolved the dispute, but it also gave me an opportunity to explore the depths of Sam Axe. Creating a spin-off based on your character is something an actor always hopes a TV show will do.
Burn Notice started production up again for season three with a happy Bruce Campbell, but two years would pass before production started on the untitled Sam Axe movie.
My reps would gently remind Fox of their commitment.
“I thought we shut you up!” they’d cry.
“When are we making the Sam Axe movie?”
“Maybe next year. Go away!”
“Then give us some money. We get paid whether you make the movie or not.”
“Here. Go away!”
Cut to one year later.
“What!? You again!?”
“When are we making the Sam Axe movie?”
“You tell that son of a bitch Campbell to go away!”
“Give us some more money. We got it coming.”
“What!? The audacity!? We just –”
Fox suddenly realized they were paying me without making a movie. Giving money away and getting nothing in return is not part of the Modern Business School syllabus. “Okay, we’ll make your damn movie!”
COLOMBIA PICTURES
It didn’t make any sense. The story of The Fall of Sam Axe was actually set in Colombia, so it couldn’t possibly be filmed in Colombia, right? In my experience, you shot Michigan in Tennessee, Chicago in Portland and Metropolis in Burbank.
The shoot was set for Bogota, Colombia – all of it, not just a few random exterior scenes where you “sell” the fact that you were really there. Bogota was not known for being a particularly hospitable city, so why spend the entire schedule there? The answer was pretty simple: Fox was owned by NewsCorp. In 2007, NewsCorp acquired a majority of Telecolombia, a full-service studio that ma
inly produced soap operas, affectionately known as telenovelas.
Corporate Mantra: Use the resources you have.
I met with Samuel, the managing president of the Colombian studio and he showed me the research he did when his business became part of this multinational corporation. On the wall of his office was a hierarchy chart of NewsCorp. With all of its branching bronchioles and subsidiary connectors, it could have been an anatomical diagram of the lungs.
Samuel pointed down to the lower right at Fox Telecolombia. Almost as far from the top as one could get, he understood his company’s place on the international totem pole and had learned to accept it.
In the general worldview, Colombia was widely known for its coffee, its cocaine and its neckties. Bogota, its capital, had a reputation for being the Detroit of Colombia, a violent place where people got stabbed, shot or kidnapped.
Ironically, locals rarely talked or joked about or used cocaine. The citizens of Bogota held great disdain for the drug because they equated it with all of their problems. Cocaine hurt them not only individually but also socially.
The citizens wanted to end the drug wars, so they worked out an arrangement with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia. FARC was essentially given a playground near the coast and everyone else looked the other way.
Colombia was shockingly close to Miami – only a two-hour direct flight. Flying in, you could instantly see that a reputation for vice and violence wasn’t the only thing choking Bogota – a thick, terrible smog hung over the city in a way that made the L.A. sky seem pristine.
Beyond the typical urban pollution, the air was cursed by an abundance of traffic with no emission safeguards. Catalytic converters weren’t installed as a rule, so even brand-new Colombian cars and trucks farted out exhaust in an endless standstill of gridlock.
There’s a massive city down there somewhere …
The city is nestled along the foothills of the Andes Mountains and it was common for me to traverse from eighty three hundred to eleven thousand feet in altitude for a day’s work. The roads going over the mountains weren’t just steep – they were narrow. Going uphill, I felt sorry for the cyclists navigating the gridlock. By “felt sorry for” I mean that I was amazed these idiots thought turbo training during rush hour at exhaust-pipe height was a good idea.
Going back downhill after shooting, we appreciated that the smell of exhaust was at least replaced with a new one: brake pads working overtime to stop lumbering vehicles from plunging off the mountain roads.
LOCKED AND LOADED
Bogota, because of what was mostly in its past, had a “thing” about security. Personally, I’ve never seen things so locked down in my life. An armed man often stood in front of any packed restaurant – gun on full display. Policemen were on many random corners and fully-armed military troops stood atop numerous bridges and walkways.
Ida and I only had a key to our actual apartment, not the outside door. We couldn’t get in – or out – without the help of the lobby attendant. Ida was mildly claustrophobic and hated the idea that she was involuntarily sealed into the building.
For the first time while on location, I was assigned a bodyguard. His name was Jose – and yes, he was packing heat. A real pro, he was clever enough to keep a distance as he shadowed me. Being seen as “needing a bodyguard” was just another way of saying you were “probably worth kidnapping.”
Honestly, I didn’t have a single problem while in Bogota – not even dirty looks from the locals. Other crew members, who actually lived there, weren’t so fortunate.
I put my foot in my mouth while working with Malena, a young woman from the wardrobe department. She was doing her best to make my scarf look exactly the way the director wanted.
“You better get this right, Malena,” I quipped, “or Donovan’s gonna cut you.”
Malena practically staggered backwards, her face stricken and pale. “W-w-why –” she stammered, “why would you say something like that to me?”
“What do you mean?” I replied, oblivious to what I might have done. “I was just making a joke.”
“I was stabbed a month ago.”
Oh, shit.
The redness of embarrassment shone through my movie makeup. “I am so sorry,” I apologized earnestly. “I never would have been such a jackass if I knew that.”
Malena’s story was chilling. She had been casually walking through her neighborhood, which was not far from where Ida and I were staying, when she rounded a corner and saw four loitering hooligans.
“Give me your purse! Give me your wallet!” they demanded.
“Screw you,” she boldly defied them. “I’m not giving you anything!”
The thugs attacked, but Malena was tough and managed to keep them at bay. Before they scampered away, she felt a sharp pain in her arm. Looking down at the fresh blood pouring out, she knew she had been stabbed.
To her amazement, a police officer was directly across the street. He had seen it all unfold and had done nothing to intervene.
“What the hell!?” Malena shouted at the cop, crossing the street toward him. “They’re right there – you saw them!”
The cop’s expression didn’t change as Malena gestured to her injury.
“What about this? They stabbed me!”
The cop looked at her fresh wound and said, “You’re a rich girl. You can afford to go to the clinic.”
In this case – and I have found it true whenever the police force of a given country is woefully underpaid – the officer gets to make a judgment call, instead of enforcing a fixed set of laws. The “assailants,” in his view, were more contemporaries than anything and because Malena clearly had more money she wasn’t really a victim.
I promised myself that as soon as I got home I would thank the first police officer I saw.
THE RISE OF MICHAEL WESTEN
Earlier in the year, while we were in the middle of shooting Burn Notice, Jeffrey Donovan sauntered over between setups. My contract issues had been resolved and it was public knowledge that I was getting a spin-off TV movie.
“Hey, uh,” Donovan said somewhat sheepishly (which made me immediately suspicious), “so, I guess I should say congratulations on your TV movie.”
“Oh yeah. Thanks,” I replied.
[Awkward pause]
Finally, Donovan broke the silence. “So, uh, who’s going to direct it?”
“Oh, you know, we got a handful of guys in mind.”
“Oh, like, some of the Burn Notice guys?”
Show runner Matt Nix and I had assembled a short list of directors who had done impressive work on the series and could handle a larger-scale endeavor.
Donovan nodded and offered, “Well, uh, hey, if you wouldn’t mind, I sure would love to put my name in the hat.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure. I’ll mention it to Matt,” I replied, being careful not to sound too excited or concerned.
Actually, Donovan had directed his first episode of Burn Notice early on in season four and we were all really pleased with how it went down. During the shoot, Jeffrey had a completely different vibe. He skipped around set like a little kid and had a great time directing.
As an actor, I love directors who actually care about the mechanics of acting. Sometimes you get stuck with folks who don’t think twice about character progression or performance. Donovan knew how to talk to actors and that mattered to me.
Donovan miming how to eat a huge hamburger.
I fired off an e-mail to Nix: “Hey, JD just expressed an interest in directing this thing. What do you think about putting him on the list?”
“Sure. Why not?” Nix replied.
So, Donovan entered the list – at around number four. At the time, Matt Nix had another show in production called The Good Guys and a recurring director on that show was the top candidate for helming The Fall of Sam Axe. Unfortunately, he did something and ended up on Matt’s other list.
Donovan was up to number three.
Now, I may n
ot remember this correctly, but rumor had it that the other two candidates became unavailable due to a “series of mysterious accidents” shortly after Donovan entered the list. Long story short: Due to a freak lead pipe/kneecap accident and a faulty brake line, Donovan became our one and only choice.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that getting Donovan to direct was an elegant solution. It was almost a form of paying tribute to the headliner of the show and it gave him a connection to it. If The Fall of Sam Axe was a success, he and I could celebrate together. If it failed, we’d have some war stories to chuckle about.
Ultimately, Matt Nix and I were right to put our faith in Donovan – he directed The Fall of Sam Axe with the confidence and skill of a veteran. Having a professional cohort I could trust down in Bogota didn’t hurt either.
THE PREQUEL DIET
When the audience first met Sam Axe in Burn Notice, they met a lounging lothario, a lager-swilling retiree with love handles and liver damage. He was a character who created an entire lifestyle around the notion of not giving a shit anymore – the beer gut and muscular atrophy were just part of the package.
To be the Sam Axe in The Fall of Sam Axe, I would have to transform into the “younger, still on duty” version. I needed to lose at least fifteen pounds and regain some degree of muscle tone. The goal in presenting this character, as I attempted to turn back the hands of time, was to not embarrass myself.
To lose the weight, working out wasn’t going to be enough. I had to stop ingesting everything that I had ever enjoyed – booze, meat, oil, sugar, flavor and happiness – until I reached my goal. I could have absolutely no fun at all or any of the things that I desired, craved or enjoyed. I thought all that leading man, overexertion and sacrifice crap was behind me when Jack of All Trades was canceled.
I did successfully drop from around 225 down to 210 in time for production. What was surprising, though, was that the workload caused me to lose an additional ten pounds over the course of the four-week shoot.
Hail to the Chin Page 20