Cast and crew could expect very different payouts from Roseanne axing

THE swift axing of the wildly successful Roseanne reboot has raised difficult questions about whether Roseanne Barr’s co-stars and crew will be compensated for their lost work — if at all.

The top-rating reboot was canned by US Network ABC this week after Barr compared an African-American former adviser to Barack Obama to an ape on Twitter.

The scandal came a week after the series’ rebooted tenth season had finished airing, with an eleventh season of 13 new episodes already in the early stages of pre-production.

That season is now cancelled, with hundreds of cast and crew members out of a job. And it appears that those in front of the camera are in a much better position to recoup some of the potential earnings they’ve lost than those working behind the scenes.

THE STARS

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show’s central cast members — among them Sara Gilbert, Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman — recently negotiated new contracts for the 11th season worth $US300,000 per episode, a $US50,000-per-episode payrise from season 10.

And despite the fact the season won’t go ahead, they could still expect to be paid for at least 10 of the 13 nixed episodes, given their contracts would have required them to turn down other potential work that would have clashed with the filming of the next season.

And while ABC may try to wiggle out of that contract given the extraordinary nature of the situation, the cast will “lawyer up if they have to,” The Hollywood Reporter quotes a source close to the show as saying.

THE WRITERS

The Roseanne writers’ room for season 11 was running for only one day when the show got axed, and those in the room face less certain financial futures than the main cast of Roseanne.

Most will have been on agreements that mean they’re paid per episode produced — that’s zero eps, in the case of season 11. However, Roseanne’swriters are expected to push for at least some compensation for the show’s untimely end, given that many would have passed on other work opportunities to take the job and other shows in production at the same time are already staffed.

“Nobody really knows yet what kind of compensation they’re going to get. Everybody is a little bit on edge about how it’s going to turn out,” writer and executive producer Dave Caplan told The Hollywood Reporter.

THE NETWORK

The Roseanne reboot was the ABC network’s top-rating prime-time entertainment show and had brought in over $US22.8 million in ad revenue after just nine episodes, according to Reuters.

The second season had already been pitched to advertisers and was expected to earn $US60 million for the network, according to estimates from research firm Kantar Media. Instead, ABC President Channing Dungey finds herself scrambling to find another prime-time show that can hope to replicate Roseanne’s success, in an effort to recoup the losses from the iconic TV show’s dramatic end.

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