‘Smash’ exec producer just received a ‘negative’ $25 residual for the show: ‘Makes sense’
He’s not smashing any money records.
On Thursday, “Smash” exec producer Joshua Safran revealed that he’s not exactly swimming in cash from residuals for the short-lived NBC show.
“Somehow, receiving a negative residual for SMASH makes sense,” Safran posted on X, formerly Twitter, alongside a screenshot showing a payment of $25.38 with a minus next to it.
“So they say you owe them money? or they’re going to hold your next earnings until they claw that back?” one bewildered fan asked him.
“I’ve been powering through a rewatch of Smash so you should have a residual check for $0.000000003 coming your way in no time!” another fan replied.
A third fan said, “I’m watching as quickly as i can ok!!!!”
“Smash,” which has a cult following, aired for two seasons on NBC from 2012 to 2013. Steven Spielberg was also among its exec producers.
“Smash” was a musical drama about a group of producers making a Broadway show about Marilyn Monroe called “Bombshell.”
The cast of “Smash” included Debra Messing, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Anjelica Huston and Leslie Odom Jr. Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Hudson also appeared in the show.
Safran, who is also known for “Gossip Girl,” didn’t elaborate on what the the negative residual meant.
He’s just the latest Hollywood figure to pull back the curtain and publicly talk about residuals, which were major issues in the historic WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023.
The WGA strike ended in September of 2023. The SAG-AFTRA strike ended in November of 2023.
In July of 2023, Kamil McFadden, who starred on three seasons of Disney’s “K.C. Undercover,” tweeted a screen recording of his residuals, which also had negative dollar amounts. “Wanna see something crazy?” he captioned it. “…I’m only netting $2.77. The math ain’t mathing.”
“Abbott Elementary” star William Stanford Davis posted a $0.05 paycheck from an undisclosed TV show on social media during the strikes.
“I’ve been a screen actor for 35 years. I’ve been in the guild about 32 years and I’ll let this speak for itself,” Davis, 73, said in a July 2023 Instagram video.
“You see that? Can you believe that? That’s [five] cents,” he said.
“The postage, the paper, everything costs more than that. That’s what they think of us as actors. This is why we’re on strike for better wages, for better residuals [and] for a piece of the subscription and to not give in to AI.”
“Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul, 44, said he doesn’t get any money from the hit AMC series streaming on Netflix.
“Shows live forever on these streamers, and it goes through waves,” Paul told ET Canada in Sept. 2023.
“It’s such common sense, and I think a lot of these streamers, they know that they have been getting away with not paying people, just fair wage, and now it’s time to pony up.”
Mandy Moore, 40, also revealed that she got checks for mere pennies from “This Is Us” reruns, despite the show being an Emmy-nominated hit.
“Ours is a fickle industry and in my 20+ years of being a performer, my career has ebbed and flowed. I’ve had very lean years where I couldn’t get a job and those are precisely the moments when in years past, actors could rely on residuals from their past work to help them get by,” Moore shared on Instagram that same month.
Jana Schmieding, who was on FX’s Emmy nominated, “Reservation Dogs,” said she gets a .03 residual every quarter for the show being streamed on Hulu.
“Listen, I’m an actor. I don’t want a yacht. But I’d love to be able to save for retirement,” she tweeted at the time.
