Why Hollywood Stars Make Bank On Broadway—For Producers

Forbes

2 days ago

George Clooney could not have asked for a much bigger or better Broadway debut. Good Night, and Good Luck—the show he cowrote, produced and stars in—is nominated for five Tony Awards at this Sunday's ceremony, including Clooney for Best Actor, and has broken weekly box office records as the highest-grossing non-musical play in history. Its penultimate performance on Saturday will be broadcast live on CNN and HBO Max, a first for a Broadway show.
Through 12 weeks of its 13-week run, the stage adaptation of the showdown between journalist Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy has grossed more on Broadway ($44 million) than its source material. The 2005 film of the same name cowritten and directed by Clooney, earned just $32 million at the domestic box office despite earning six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Director.
But this much is clear—Clooney didn't come to Broadway for the money.
Forbes estimates the 64-year-old Clooney will earn $6 million in salary and gross royalties for his numerous roles in the show, more than any other theater performer over that span, but a fraction of what Hollywood's highest-paid actors can expect to make on each movie project. For last year's Wolfs, for instance, Forbes estimates Apple paid Clooney and his co-star Brad Pitt $30 million each.
Whether it's the purity or the prestige of acting on stage—"Movies will make you famous, television will make you rich, but theatre will make you good," the Broadway stalwart Terrence Mann famously quipped—A-list stars like Clooney have become a vital of the Broadway ecosystem.
Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal currently headline Othello, while Kieren Culkin, Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr lead Glengarry Glen Ross. In April, Gladiator II star Paul Mescal wrapped up a run in A Streetcar Named Desire. And the 2024 theater season included Robert Downey Jr., Rachel McAdams, Steve Carrell, Eddie Redmayne and Jeremy Strong, all leading non-musical plays that ran 10-16 weeks with a hard closing date to accommodate the actors' busy schedules.
While Hollywood stars have made appearances on Broadway for decades, in recent years, producers and investors have been increasingly eager to stage these short-run, star-driven productions, which considerably lower their financial risk. A play typically requires a $6 to $9 million investment to get to opening night, compared to $20-25 million for new musicals, according to Forbes estimates. Weekly operating costs run in the $400,000-$600,000 range for plays versus $800,000-$900,000 for musicals.
'Your likelihood of losing all your money [as an investor] is near zero, because of the projections of sales based on that actor," says Jason Turchin, a Tony-winning producer and founder of the Broadway Investors Club. 'You may not make multiples back but you should get a healthy return.'
Good Night, and Good Luck, for example, recouped its initial $9.5 million investment just seven and a half weeks into its run. Othello and Glengarry Glen Ross made their money back ($9 million and $7.5 million respectively) in nine weeks.
Reputation, Reputation, Reputation: Stars such as Othello's Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington can sell out limited-edition runs on Broadway and then return to the more lucrative world of movies.
While the upside of these shows is capped by the limited run, investors can expect to make 10-30% return on their capital, Turchin says. Considering only about a quarter of all Broadway shows fully pay back their investors, or less, it's the kind of safe bet he believes producers will lean into even more in future years.
A-list stars meanwhile, some of whom are paid upwards of $20 million per movie, are typically given a minimum weekly salary—around $100,000 per week for the highest-level talent—as an advance against a percentage of the show's net gross, after expenses such as credit card fees and theater restoration charges are deducted from the raw receipts. An actor's gross royalty points are highly variable, but the top end can reach 10%.
Other significant members of a show, such as the writers, producers, and directors, are either paid royalties from a small percentage of the gross or a larger percentage of a show's profits after recoupment. For ongoing shows, almost all have moved toward paying out of the profits to mitigate risk, but for sure-thing star vehicles—say, Hugh Jackman's year-long run in the 2022 revival of The Music Man—the standard is gross participation. Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck deal would include net gross points for starring, cowriting, producing and owning the underlying IP, adding up to his impressive total.
Until this year, a Broadway actor's gross percentage only modestly exceeded the weekly minimums. Most hits gross just over $1 million per week, and over the run of a show, a star performer could expect to earn between $1-3 million. But if you're the type of actor who has made a fortune playing a superhero (Jackman), selling a tequila company (Clooney) or being one of the most bankable box office draws of the last 30 years (Washington), the money matters less.
What's changed in the 2025 season is that producers are realizing just how far they can push the ticket pricing with a bankable star, particularly for the most expensive seats. Average ticket prices for Good Night, and Good Luck, Othello and Glengarry Glen Ross hover between $250-$400, and premium seats have routinely sold in the $700-$900 range, more than double the cost of top tickets to last year's star-driven plays or long-running hits like Wicked and Hamilton.
Of the shows that started their runs in March, they account for three of the top four highest-grossers on Broadway, with Good Night, and Good Luck and Othello averaging more than $3 million per week, and Clooney's show cracking the previously untouchable $4 million threshold for non-musicals on three occasions.
For deep-pocketed theatergoers, the appeal of seeing a movie star perform live has proven immune to traditional hurdles for other shows, such as negative reviews. According to Broadway review aggregator Did They Like It?, Good Night, and Good Luck received eight positive reviews, 9 mixed reviews and four negative reviews from major critics. Othello logged two positive reviews, 15 mixed reviews and three negative, and was completely shut out at the Tony Awards. Yet ticket sales remain robust.
Last year's Robert Downey Jr.-led McNeal—his Broadway debut—was one of the worst reviewed shows of the season (one positive, five mixed, eight negative) and grossed $14 million across its 12-week run.
Compare that to a play like John Proctor Is The Villain—a revisionist telling of Arthur Miller's The Crucible starring Sadie Sink of Stranger Things—which received 17 positive reviews, three mixed and one negative, plus seven Tony nominations, but averages less than $500,000 in weekly grosses, and one can quickly see the disconnect.
"It does seem that theatergoers want to see Hollywood celebrities, in the same space at the same time. They crave that experience,' says one major Broadway dealmaker. 'And for the star? A standing ovation from a thousand people every night doesn't hurt the ego.'