Chinese Celebrities’ Salaries Cut in Latest Crackdown
Above: Jaw-droppingly high rates for actors will no longer be allowed.
Long a contentious issue, the astronomical salaries of A-list actors is now the target of the state’s latest crackdown, as China’s National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) implements measures to regulate celebrities’ sky-high pay for dramas!
New Ruling to Promote “Fair Competition”
On the chopping board are top actors such as William Chan (陳偉霆), Zhou Xun (周迅) and Betty Sun Li (孫儷), whose exorbitant pay for starring in dramas is slated to become history. As part of its latest ruling to prevent “monopolizing behaviors” in the industry, salaries of actors post-tax deduction must be capped within 20 million RMB. Actors will have their pay capped at 40 percent of each drama’s budget, while leading actors cannot receive over 70 percent of what the entire cast is paid.
NRTA stated that malpractices such as tax evasion, fraudulent “yin-yang” contracts and astronomical remuneration rates will be firmly dealt with. For instance, William Chan who used to rake in 100 million RMB per drama can only receive 20 million RMB post tax deduction for Novoland: Pearl Eclipse <斛珠夫人>. Likewise, actress Sun Li who is routinely paid 60 million RMB per drama took just 16 million RMB for I Will Find You A Better Home <安家>.
Source: HK01
Sounds very fair… I hope the crew members are better paid and get their just overtime rates too…
Wow did not know William Chan’s salary is so high, even higher than those top tier China actors
It’s not weird, nowadays if you film a lot of idol dramas and variety shows, your pay will be very high. Plus I feel like the majority of the Chinese audience likes to watch idol dramas over the “serious” dramas. Investors will likely put their money in idol dramas, thus, leads of these dramas will have high pay.
too much regulation. while rest of asian drama/film industry flourish, the ccp likes to tighten its grasp. film makers having navigate through the unclear and ambiguous of these laws and regulations. investors afraid to invest b/c they don’t know if the show, esp creative/novel idea could ever make it to release. then we end up watching the same crap remake over and over again b/c people are too afraid of the ccp banning anything outside of the mold. such a shame, chinese people are totally capable of making films that could wow the world. sign
@m0m0 Totally agree with everything you said. I feel like the China entertainment is stagnant with their contents right now. As long as the actors/ actresses with huge fandom tune in then all is good when the general audiences are left with crappy series over and over.
Please invest in the Taiwan entertainment, both financial and creativity, Chinese language last beacon of hope.
Taiwan hasn’t produced any globally acclaimed hits for a long time. The only one that made any buzz was from 2015 ‘The Assassin’ starring ShuQi.
I agree there’s too much regulation in Chinese dramas. If you compare Korean and Chinese dramas, there’s so much more variety in Korean dramas. For instance, Squid Game and All of Us are Dead are trending on Netflix. Series like these will never appear in China. I personally feel there are creative people in China, but even if they come up with a good idea for a drama, the strict regulations of the CCP will not allow certain types of drama to be made.
Have to agree with @hohliu, at the end of the day they’re just entertainers…at the same time, wonder if this will stop the hk stars from coming to mainland to perform…knowing that they’re going to get capped on their salaries.
Still not fair…
40% of the production cost, the worse is 70% of the cast salary
BTW… If they want to cheat, they will find a way…
they should definitely be capped and give those extra funds to the people behind stage, the salary gap is too huge…
I like this capping. Then maybe more money can be diverted to the background crew to write a better story or have better props and CGI.