The Walking Dead

It would still be their biggest show, but it would be harder for them to command the advertising dollars they do right now, which in turn would impact how much they can sink into the show and remain profitable / feed AMC's greed.

Shows that lose a lot of main characters run the real risk of losing viewers. It would be like the Sopranos if the season killed off Tony and Paulie and you tried to headline the show with Silvio and Camilla and AJ.

Just some maths that may be completely wrong so I'll call it 2+2 is 4 minus 1 is 3 quik math( song reference ).
TWD at the peak was pulling in 16-18 million an episode just in the release night showings in ad dollars.
AMC is indeed greedy, more so than most networks so we'll assume they want 50% off the weekly money without consideration of after the showing sales of episodes and merchandise and eventually reruns there and elsewhere.
The show probably pulls in 6-9 million an episode now and I would guess budget at what 2 million per. That leaves 1 to 2.5 million at current audience for pay.
Normal is said to have a 20 million deal over 3 years. Each year has 16 episodes or 48. That is a whopping 416,000 per episode payday which is way above the 100k average most were getting years back, but probably includes Talking appearances, external fan events ( which is where MOST of TWD really made their money. They made a TON for showing up to cons and fan club shit ) and maybe even some more AMC series like the bike one. I haven't read the release on his deal.
So Norman alone is eating up to 20% of the cast pay alone and the show has a dozen or so "stars".
Assuming most of them now get 50-150k per episode which would seem low for a hit series, lets be real. $1.6 million a year is not a bad paycheck at all, then they are still within budget at 7 million viewers. If that continues to drop and down to Fear levels then shits in trouble.

By Fear killing off their stars and bringing on Morgan which I am sure is probably well on his way to being the highest paid their and bringing in fresh stars starting at the bottom of the pay, Fear was able to cut the show costs a good amount this year.

What does all this mean?
It is the last season of The Last Ship coming this summer. Rhona Mitra was the only true star of that show and I would tongue punch her in her fart box.

what per show pay i could find

Andrew Lincoln
2010 $40k
2013 $70k
2014 $92k
2017 $618k

Norman Reedus
2013 $80k
2015 $124k
2017 $550k

Chandler Riggs
2013-2017 $30,000

things i found but no real sources other than comments
Reedus and Jon Bernthal both started at $80k
Lennie James $100k for last season / FTWD
Steven Yeun $60k his last season
Michonne, Maggie, and Carol between $40k to 60k

So they are going for the Whisperers, then.

Cybsled said:

So they are going for the Whisperers, then.

Click to expand...

And the 2 year jump in the comics as well obviously. Missed chance imo to make some new comic free story happen.
Also lol at "stealing" the main arc of FtWD tell me your story of who you were back again.

The AMC recycling bin is over by the door. Please recycle!

best theory i have seen lately they are going to compress the books down with 2 arcs overlapping
think with gimple plan would be another 6 season to catch up with the current book arc

Goatface said:

what per show pay i could find

Andrew Lincoln
2010 $40k
2013 $70k
2014 $92k
2017 $618k

Norman Reedus
2013 $80k
2015 $124k
2017 $550k

Chandler Riggs
2013-2017 $30,000

things i found but no real sources other than comments
Reedus and Jon Bernthal both started at $80k
Lennie James $100k for last season / FTWD
Steven Yeun $60k his last season
Michonne, Maggie, and Carol between $40k to 60k

Click to expand...

Holy shit, I thought Michonne, Maggie and Carol would have been paid more. I know of them have done other work but dayam that's slim bucks. Are there like royalties they receive in addition to that, or anything cause that's gotta be rough

Tauntworth said:

Holy shit, I thought Michonne, Maggie and Carol would have been paid more. I know of them have done other work but dayam that's slim bucks. Are there like royalties they receive in addition to that, or anything cause that's gotta be rough

Click to expand...

That's per episode, dude. That's hardly rough.

Ahhh musta misread/minsunderstood. Yah not so bad then.

They make as much/far more at the comic cons/events. I'm pretty sure it was this thread we discussed it a few years back but between show up money, merchandise and all sorts of other shit they can rake in up to 100k in a week which is why they all go to them so much. For the ones paid much less than the top stars of each series they may even make more in a year from doing them than the show itself.

He looks like Eugene with a beard.

he was the best character on sons of anarchy

-
so apparently after Rick is gone, there isn't going to be a lead
Michonne, Daryl and Carol will all be co-leads

Makes sense...that way it makes it easier to kill someone off and not have a leadership vacuum lol

I really wish they'd just kill off the entire lot of the original cast, and have the building story line in Fear where Morgan wants to go back and take the FWD people. Right now FWD really sucks because of the massive time jump, but the characters are still solid. At least way more solid than anything TWD has at this point. Yeah there is Jesus and Aaron. But both of them, like the other characters like Michonne, Carol, Rick, and Daryl, have had all of their charm sucked out of them. It would be awesome if I could make 20 million bucks to grunt unintelligibly for 3 years. No fault to Reetus, that is all on how the show was run and directed. But I can totally see where the TWD production have gotten their fingers into FWD. Seasons 2 and 3 of FWD were really good, and now we've spent three episodes on a storm after an entire half of a season spent trying to build up a very non climatic moment that was revealed to us in the opening moments of the first episode.

really liked Fear, but like 4 behind now, really hate what they have done with it
ratings are tanking, think 2nd half has dropped like 20%

AMC Has Plans For Another Decade of The Walking Dead

Asked about the weaker ratings for AMC hit show The Walking Dead,
AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan argued the popular series was more of a franchise. "The Walking Dead is a universe...and we have a plan to manage over the next decade, plus. That plan is a careful plan to respect the world of the fans of that world," he argued, as Sapan pointed to Fear of the Walking Dead as an extension of The Walking Dead franchise.

Goatface said:

AMC Has Plans For Another Decade of The Walking Dead

Asked about the weaker ratings for AMC hit show The Walking Dead,
AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan argued the popular series was more of a franchise. "The Walking Dead is a universe...and we have a plan to manage over the next decade, plus. That plan is a careful plan to respect the world of the fans of that world," he argued, as Sapan pointed to Fear of the Walking Dead as an extension of The Walking Dead franchise.

Click to expand...

yeah, that plan will die when this guy steps down. this zombie fad is running on fumes already. they need to wait a few or 5 years before it becomes cool again. the dystopian future thing is done for now.