EXCLUSIVE: On April 27, cameras are set to start rolling in Wilmington, NC on The Summer I Turned Pretty, the movie followup to the wildly popular Prime Video series. But as Belly (Lola Tung), Conrad (Christopher Briney), Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and the rest of the gang return to the picturesque Cousins Beach, they will do so with a salary issue involving the franchise’s young cast simmering in the background.
Television is known for creating stars, and there is no area where that is more pronounced than YA series which, by nature, feature largely newcomers and up-and-comers with few or no prior major acting credits. The upside could be enormous as the genre has produced a slew of stars; recent examples include Millie Bobbie Brown, Joseph Quinn and Sadie Sink of Stranger Things and Aimee Lou Wood, Emma Mackey and Ncuti Gatwa of Sex Education.
But young actors having little clout also could result in them not being able to fully benefit from the success of the YA shows they have helped turn into giant hits. That may be happening with one of the biggest YA series of the streaming era, The Summer I Turned Pretty, co-produced by indie studio Wiip and Amazon MGM Studios.
After a promising first season that delighted fans of Jenny Han’s novels the series is based on, The Summer I Turned Pretty, created and executive produced by Han, grew in Season 2 before exploding into a global cultural phenomenon in the third and final season as viewers became obsessed with Belly’s romantic journey and her complicated love triangle with brothers Conrad and Jeremiah.
Given the final chapter’s phenomenal success, it was not a surprise when, at a glitzy series finale event in Paris last September, Prime Video announced a feature film conclusion of the story.
But if you thought that the stars that made Belly, Conrad and Jeremiah the most debated TV characters of last summer — dividing the world into Team Conrad and Team Jeremiah — would capitalize on the Season 3’s massive popularity with their deals for the movie, think again.
(L-R) Lola Tung, Christopher Briney
Prime Video
According to sources, heading into the third and final season, Tung, Briney and Casalegno — as well as Sean Kaufman and Rain Spencer — negotiated salary bumps. I hear the lead trio started in the $35K-$40K range an episode for Season 1, which is not atypical for young actors (Tung was a first-year college student with no professional acting experience when she booked the series.)
The first season did well enough to earn a renewal but the show flew somewhat under the radar as Prime Video at the time was not known as a leading destination for YA content the way it is today. The series’ viewership and following grew in Season 2, with the three-episode premiere doubling the Season 1 debut audience in the first three days of availability. That opened the door to salary renegotiations with Wiip, the lead studio on the series that makes the deals with talent in coordination with Amazon.
According to sources, the process was well underway, with talks in advanced (or final) stages when the actors were asked to commit to a movie.
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Accounts of the response vary.
According to sources close to the talent, the request was met with resistance, with at least some of the stars not willing to do it but were told that they would only get salary bumps if they sign up for the movie. (While renegotiations and sizable raises for casts of successful shows are customary, often after Season 2 or Season 4, they are not contractual but upon discretion from the studios as the multi-year deals actors sign when cast in a series only call for minimum year-to-year bumps.)
With Wiip holding firm, the young actors ultimately agreed to the movie, which was made part of the renegotiated contracts that gave them raises for Season 3, I hear.
According to talent sources, at least some of the leads felt “forced” to accept the modified terms with their raises in jeopardy, signing the deals “under duress.”
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Sources close to the studio claim that the actors were all aligned on the idea and went for it.
There is also conflicting information on the size of the bumps; some sources peg the trio’s Season 3 paychecks in the neighborhood of $100K an episode. As the series’ lead, Tung is believed to have made more than her male counterparts over the span of the series.
As for the the feature, under the renegotiated contracts, I hear the actors are being paid three episodic fees to do it.
‘The Summer I Turned Pretty: (L-R) Rain Spencer, Sean Kaufman
Erika Doss/Amazon
That includes Kaufman, who plays Belly’s brother Steven, and Spencer, who plays her best friend Taylor. The duo, who have had parity on the show, saw the popularity of their characters, nicknamed Staylor by fans, rise in the final season.
Following the extraordinary success of Season 3, which amassed 70 million viewers worldwide within its first 70 days, dominating the cultural conversation and remaining in Prime Video’s Top 10 for months, I hear actors reps reached out about getting salary increases (or bonuses) for the movie but were rebuffed, with the studios holding the young stars to their existing contracts.
It is not customary to reopen recently closed deals because a season outperformed expectations, and some reps accept that, acknowledging that the market was different when the post-Season 2 renegotiations were held and that the cast would’ve been offered a lot more for the movie after Season 3; they call that part of doing business.
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Still, I hear for at least some of the actors, the development was disappointing as they feel their contributions for TSITP Season 3’s outsized success — both filming and promoting it — should be recognized as they are heading into a three-month shoot on the movie, followed by a promotional campaign.
There has been discrepancy whether the cast’s contracts include promotional obligations for the movie, with some suggesting that, given the treatment, actors may not be keen on performing publicity if their deals don’t stipulate that. Sources close to the studios indicate that those services are part of the contracts.
Amid industry-wide belt-tightening, which makes talent salary renegotiations more difficult than they once were, this is not an isolated case. Heading into the fifth and final season of Netflix’s YA juggernaut Outer Banks, I hear the cast tried to renegotiate their deals and secure big raises with the adventure series’ popularity exploding and spawning a Poguelandia live event series, which the actors attend. That ultimately didn’t happen with the group, which has produced such stars as Madelyn Cline, Chase Stokes and Drew Starkey, getting one-time bonuses instead, I hear.
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The cast of Netflix’s YA comedy XO, Kitty also tried renegotiating after Season 2 but received nominal bonuses instead, sources said.
The young stars of Netflix’s Stranger Things were successful in securing big salary bumps heading into the show’s fifth and final season. They were likely helped by the fact that the main cast included established actors like Winona Ryder and David Harbour, but also by the series stretching beyond California’s seven-year rule, which prohibits the enforcement of personal service contracts (including talent deals) beyond seven calendar years from the start of service.
Stranger Things’ original cast was assembled in 2015 when Season 1 was shot. The fifth and final season was slated to begin production eight years later, in 2023 (It was delayed by the Hollywood strikes to January 2024.) The cast previously secured big raises after Season 2 in 2018; that was during PeakTV, pre-Covid, pre-contraction when studios were more open to such conversations.
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For The Summer I Turned Pretty cast, they will have to rely on the career boost the show has given them in the form of future opportunities. Or if Amazon and Han change their minds on the upcoming movie being a “final chapter” and opt for a sequel as the actors’ contracts only include an option for one film.
In any case, talent sources call the TSITP situation “a dangerous precedent” for how young actors are treated, not getting a piece of the action and being part of the success of their show.
“Are we back in a studio system when you own the actors?,” one longtime industry insider asked.
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