‘Westworld’ Core Cast Will Still Be Paid For Season 5 After Cancellation
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EXCLUSIVE: The door to Westworld was slammed shut today as HBO confirmed that the dystopian sci-fi series will not get a fifth season. It was bad news for anyone associated with the show, led by creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, who had been hoping and advocating for another chapter, but for the main cast, there was some silver lining. I hear they will be paid for Season 5 regardless of the fact that it will not be produced.
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According to sources, the core cast had pay-or-play deals for Season 5. I hear the actors’ options came up sometime last year, before Season 4 had aired (its production had been delayed because of the pandemic), and they were exercised. I hear the cast also might have renegotiated their deals at that time.
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The move is not unusual. Networks sometime pay to secure a cast before a renewal decision is made, especially if the group features big names who would be hard to reassemble without contracts.
Westworld‘s main cast, as listed on the show’s HBO page, is led by Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Ed Harris and Aaron Paul. The quintet represented the series at the 2019 Comic-Con.
Wood, Newton, Wright and Harris are original cast members who previously renegotiated big raises after Season 2 to about $250,000 an episode in Season 3. Paul joined in Season 3.
The salaries the cast is owed for Season 5 are believed to total in the $10M-$15M range. It is not a small chunk of change, but Westworld is not a cheap show overall, with its third-season budget pegged at $100M, or about $10M an episode, so proceeding with a fifth season would’ve cost HBO north of $80M.
According to sources, the cancellation decision came down to the same criteria Netflix uses for their renewal decisions: viewership vs. cost. Westworld‘s ratings have declined steadily throughout its run to date. Creatively, Westworld had an uptick in the critical response from Season 3 to Season 4 (from 73% to 75% on Rotten Tomatoes), but fans had been increasingly vocal about the dense mythology and convoluted storylines that had become harder to follow, which has reflected in the viewership numbers.
The cancellation comes a day after a challenging quarterly earnings report by HBO parent Warner Bros. Discovery. During the call that followed, WBD CEO David Zaslav revealed plans to raise the company’s savings target to $3.5B, up $500M over its initial target
“The grand experiment of creating something at any cost is over,” he said.
Westworld, a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the question of free will, is an adaptation of the 1973 film written and directed by Michael Crichton.
Season 4 credits included Nolan and Joy as creators, EPs Abrams, Alison Schapker, Athena Wickham, Richard J. Lewis, Denise Thé, and Ben Stephenson with Kilter Films and Bad Robot producing in association with Warner Bros. Television.
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