Many stars nowadays are offered a tremendous amount of money for their roles in media franchises. However, back in the 90s, the scenes of the industry were a bit different than it is today, and getting paid in millions was nothing short of a dream for many A-listers.
Jerry Seinfeld, the lead star of the sitcom Seinfeld was offered such a huge amount of money that would be considered way too high even by the standards of the current scenario of the industry.
Jerry Seinfeld allegedly turned down a whopping amount of $100 million
Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most established stand-up comedians and actor in the industry of all time. The American comedian first rose to fame back in 1981 after he impersonated Johnny Carson by making an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Throughout the 80s, Jerry Seinfeld made quite a name for himself as an established comedian, and towards the end of the decade, he was offered to create a sitcom with NBC. Seinfeld turned to his friend, Larry David for help and as they say, the rest is history. Seinfeld and Larry David created the sitcom, Seinfeld, based on a fictionalized version of the comedian himself which went on to become one of the greatest sitcoms of all time.
Jerry Seinfeld had one hell of a pay raise throughout his run on the show. According to Celebrity Net Worth, Seinfeld used to earn almost $20,000 per episode for the first season of the show. As the show continued to rise in popularity, Seinfeld’s paycheck also increased as he went on to earn $40,000 per episode for seasons 2 and 3. For the next three seasons, Seinfeld received a whopping amount of $100,000 per episode.
At the peak of the popularity of Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld used to earn almost $500,000 per episode in seasons 7 and 8. During the last season of the series, the American comedian earned $1 million for each episode making him one of the highest-paid actors in television history.
However, Jerry Seinfeld eventually got exhausted from doing the series for so long and decided he would quit the show after season 8. He agreed to do one more season for the fans but that was it. The studio on the other hand did not want to end the show at the peak of its popularity.
As the then senior and executive vice president of NBC Entertainment, Warren Littlefield once revealed in an interview with Fox News, they even offered a huge amount of money to Seinfeld to do one more season. He said,
“We offered him $5 million an episode. We didn’t mess around. What we put on the table was unheard of. We went in there with a staggering sum and there was tremendous confidence that no one could walk away from it.
He came to me and said, ‘I don’t have a life, I’m not married, I don’t have kids.’ We gave it everything we had, he was tempted, but in the end it was a quality of life decision.”
Although he did quit the show after 9 seasons, Jerry Seinfeld continues to receive money for his work in the series to this day, and with the help of Syndication deals, Seinfeld has now crossed a net worth of $1 billion.
Seinfeld was one of the worst-rated shows in history after its first season
Although a lot of fans of the show today describe the series as a complete masterpiece, things were quite different when the first season of the series was released back in 1989. However, the executives at NBC and the creators of the show, Jerry Steinfeld and Larry David held out hope and it eventually went on to become one of the most successful shows of all time.
Warren Littlefield once opened up about the same in an interview with Fox News and said,
“At the end of its first season it was the lowest rated comedy and the second lowest rated program in all of TV, and yet we loved it and we went forward and kept it on the air, and that kind of patience being rewarded was a really important lesson.
History would repeat itself in our success by being patient, sticking with things we believed in, and of course ‘Seinfeld’ took over the mantle of ‘Cheers’ and gave us a decade of strength in the same way ‘Cheers’ did. Again, a rocky start, but it became critical to our success.”
Although a lot of critics mention how Seinfeld is particularly about ‘nothing’, the creators of the show turned this insult into merit. Seinfeld occasionally used to address various social issues of the era with effective humor without hurting the feelings of any particular section of society. That is also one of the reasons why the series is considered one of the most culturally significant series in television history.
Seinfeld is widely regarded as one of the most influential shows of all time. Multiple quotes from the show have gone on to become popular catchphrases in modern culture. The show was even voted as the second best-written TV series of all time by WGA(Writers Guild of America) back in 2013.
All seasons of Seinfeld are currently streaming on Netflix.
