Hello Purple Orgers. I have a question that has been on my mind for years and can't find the answer to this question. How much were the stars paid to star in Purple Rain? Prince, Morris Day and Apples. Did the movie make them millionaires?

few actors get a cut of the movie revenues. I suspect only Prince--if anyone--got a cut of the movie's profit.

Prob. not a lot, I don't think they had a big budget to make the movie, and Prince didn't co-produce it. It was more of a bigger deal to be in movie theaters, make money off the soundtrack, tour and merchandising. I'm sure the members of the Revolution thought it was amusing at the time that they were going to be movie stars.

The publicity from the movie outweighed the checks they got.

They cashed in on "Purple Rain" with the tour.

Prince was playing arenas in '83, he was prob. comfortable but not wealthy where he would've been set for life. After the "Purple Rain" tour? Wealthy. I'm pretty sure the merch booth from that tour did exceptionally well.

OnlyNDaUsa said:

few actors get a cut of the movie revenues. I suspect only Prince--if anyone--got a cut of the movie's profit.

I'd guess he made around 100K, if that. Had he produced it, then he would've made way more. Had he written the screenplay, prob. another 50K or whatever the going rate was at that time..usually not a lot. But the soundtrack for the movie (just talking about the music in the movie, not the album itself) was where he made his money off the movie itself, and royalties from home video & cable.

I think Purple Rain had a budget of 7 million... So I doubt those guys were paid a lot of money

Prince actually made very little from the whole thing relatively, believe it or not.

[Edited 11/14/10 18:05pm]

banks said:

I think Purple Rain had a budget of 7 million... So I doubt those guys were paid a lot of money

It may have reached 7 Mil, but at the time of production, it was about 6 Mil. I'm not sure if the budget included promotion, which could easily have eaten up much of that. My guess would be that the non-billed actors received SAG scale wages, even though they probably weren't SAG members.

One of the reasons why Vanity dropped out of the project was because of the low salary that they offered her.

That is a great question.

Obviously I have no idea how these things work, but it wouldn't surprise me if all of Prince's entourage were already on the 'Prince' payroll and being in the movie was just "part of the job"... Who knows, really. But yeah, as others have said: Wendy & Lisa, Morris and Apples pretty much owe their careers to that movie.

[Edited 11/18/10 0:12am]

Prince: $10,000 and a hoe

Morris: $8800 and two hoes

Jerome: $7,000 and rights to appear in any possible sequel(s).

Appollonia: $5,000 and a photo spread

Lisa: A bra and fiddy dollas

Wendy: Panties and forty-eight dollas

Jill: A record deal

Brown Mark: nothin'

Bobby Z: a lil more than nothin'

Dr. Fink: More than Mark and Bobby

the rest of them.....a lifetime supply of coupons to slap 'em jacks bar-b-cue