&gt; viciously increasing cycle of actor demands more -&gt; prices go up -&gt; more gross is made -&gt; actor demands more.<p>That&#x27;s not exactly how movie economics works. The script calls for a male character, 30-40 years old, good-looking as he&#x27;s the subject of romantic story. The casting operation calls a few agents and comes back with data that Tom Cruise will want $3m, Ryan Philippe will want $2m, some known actor who&#x27;s currently in a TV series wants $500k, or a no-name actor showing promise will do it for $80k.<p>It&#x27;s up to the studio heads and producers to circle down on an option they consider reasonable. They are aware that a portion of movie revenues is generated by having a brand-name actor, i.e., there will be 200,000 extra tickets sold if Tom Cruise&#x27;s name is on it. Tom Cruise is also aware of this dynamics, which explains the premium.<p>But it&#x27;s also not <i>that</i> simple. Actors like to pretend they&#x27;re in this industry for the sake of &quot;art&quot;, not &quot;money&quot;, which means that if you have an interesting script and an &quot;artistic&quot; director with a potential of making to Sundance or Cannes, you might then get a brand-name actor for essentially free (you&#x27;ll have to pay some union-mandated salary). Every big name actor has this &quot;artistic&quot; no-budget movie in his belt, to showcase their &quot;range&quot; and to signal to public that it ain&#x27;t about the money, which leads to more public attention and larger check for the next franchise movie, as the actor is still &quot;hot&quot;.