'Westworld' main cast to be paid despite season 5 cancellation
HBO decides to cancel 'Westworld' but as per the preceding contract, the core cast will be paid a hefty sum
HBO cancels Westworld after four season however the main cast will be paid for season five as per their deal.
According to Deadline the core cast had pay-or-play deals for Season 5 to secure them in advance and prevent them for making other deals.
These deals are usually made by networks to secure a cast before the renewal decision is made, especially if big names are attached to a project who would be hard to reassemble without contracts.
Westworld's main cast includes Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Ed Harris and Aaron Paul.
Aaron Paul joined in season 3, the rest have been from the start who renegotiated big raises after Season 2 to about $250,000 an episode in Season 3.
The salaries of the cast for the fifth season are summed up in the $10M-$15M range. This tells how big budget the series is. The budget for the third season alone was $100M or about $10M an episode, this tells why HBO decided to end the show.
Sources reveal that HBO used the same criteria for cancellation that Netflix uses: viewership vs. cost. The cost of Westworld superseded the viewership as fans had been complaining about the complex storyline that was difficult to follow.