Actors Want Their Money in the Megadeals of 'The Office' & 'Friends'

There is a good chance you may not be too aware of the term 'library shows'. If you are then great but just in care you are not, those are the kind of shows that are not on-air currently but the whole footage of such shows is stored safely in their respective channels or other platforms.

Only recently we learned about two of the most popular and absolutely cult shows of all time, Friends and The Office have been bagged for exclusive streaming on WarnerMedia and Comcast's upcoming services respectively, However, it isn't the fact that these shows will now only be exclusive but it is mammoth amount of money that has been spent by those channels in order to bag them.

And things are now getting a little more complicated but not too much though. According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter, their source estimates that roughly a quarter of the payouts will go to profit participants. Of course, the creators are expected to make out the best, as they traditionally get the lion's share of a show's backend "points." Some say, Daniels, along with the Friends' trio of Marta Kauffman, David Crane, and Kevin Bright, are likely making tens of millions of dollars off these library-streaming deals. It's the sort of down-the-road windfall that may not exist in the future if the industry transitions to the new model — popularized by Netflix — that buys out a creative's backend upfront.

But not everyone associated with a hit show benefits from backend, anyway. In fact, most of the Friends and Office actors aren't expected to see much money from these deals beyond their SAG-AFTRA residuals. One person familiar with The Office agreement says that star Steve Carell has some points, but it's unlikely other members of the ensemble do. And on Friends, multiple sources say the six principal castmembers negotiated somewhere around a half-point to a point each in later seasons. To put that in perspective, about 15 points are usually reserved for creators.

The exceptions are star-creators like Jerry Seinfeld, who together with Larry David owns a significant portion of Seinfeld. With Hulu's roughly $150 million SVOD deal set to expire in 2021, the comedy is expected to spark the next big licensing bidding war, with sources noting that co-owner WarnerMedia is eyeing it for HBO Max. Multiple insiders speculate that the show about nothing could command an even steeper fee than Friends and The Office, all but guaranteeing Seinfeld another generous check and his co-stars practically nothing. Quips one insider, "I guarantee you Julia Louis-Dreyfus made sure she had points on Veep."