There’s currently a huge conversation going on about how key creatives are paid in the face of the ongoing writers’ strike, but maybe after that particular issue is resolved somebody should look into why the brains behind smash hit Netflix originals are barely being compensated for their efforts, with The Night Agent creator Shawn Ryan the latest to weigh in.
It was only recently that Eric Andre revealed he didn’t make any money at all from Bad Trip, despite developing the project for a decade and then watching it go on to win stellar reviews on its way to the top end of the streaming service’s most-watched list. The Night Agent went even further, though, to the extent it can currently be found as Netflix’s fifth most-watched episodic exclusive of all-time.
A second season was announced less than two weeks after the espionage action thriller dropped, but Ryan admitted to Vulture that he took home the bare minimum despite delivering a certifiable juggernaut that conquered the charts all over the world.
“I had done the calculations. Half a billion hours is the equivalent of over 61 million people watching all ten episodes in 18 days. Those shows that air after the Super Bowl, it’s like having five or 10 of them. So I asked my lawyer, ‘What does that mean?’ In my case, it means that I got paid what I got paid. I’ll get a little bonus when season 2 gets picked up and a nominal royalty fee for each additional episode that gets made. But if you think I’m going out and buying a private jet, you’re way, way off. The promise was that if you made the company billions, you were going to get a lot of millions. That promise has gone away.”
Streaming residuals have proven to be a regular bone of contention, and with Ryan shining a light on how it works on a monetary scale, maybe the company will be target once again in order to try and ensure justifiable recompense for the people who bring in the subscribers.