Charlie Hunnam is out of the Fifty Shades of Grey film adaptation (praise all that is good in this world), but that doesn't mean people will stop wondering why he abruptly left. Did Robert Pattinson leave him a frantic voicemail message telling him to get out while he still can? Was Hunnam disheartened by the fact that his Sons of Anarchy co-stars "howled" when he told them of his new role? Did the script just suck that much? The real reason hasn't been clear — but now, looking at the salary he was set to make for the role, maybe it just wasn't worth it. According to reports, Hunnam was set to make only $125,000 for the role, which would have required about three months of work. And he likely would have spent the majority of those three months with his clothes off.
No, this salary is pretty small, especially for a franchise and for an actor like Hunnam — he's not a major name in Hollywood yet, but he still has a few recognizable projects on his IMDb page, like Sons of Anarchy and Pacific Rim. Even Robert Pattinson, who was pretty much just recognizable as Cedric Diggory before Edward Cullen, was offered $2 million for the first Twilight movie. Anything below $500,000 for 50 Shades is a major low-ball.
It does prompt the question as well: If Hunnam was going to make $125,000 for three months of work on Fifty Shades — a project that would require him to participate in softcore sex scenes all day — how much do people who have actual sex for a living (a.k.a., porn stars) make for the same amount of work? While the salary for female porn stars is pretty high, it's generally lower for men, unless said male is well-known. For all intensive purposes, we're just going to go with James Deen's salary for this one, because he is arguably one of the top porn stars right now, and also, he sort of looks like Christian Grey was supposed to in the books.
According to a celebrity net worth site, Deen is worth about $1 million total, and, per month, he earns about $20,000. Multiply that by three, and that's $60,000 for three months' work; multiply that by 12, and it's $240,000 for the entire year. For the three months of work, Deen makes a little under half of what Hunnam was going to make — so, when you think about it, Hunnam's salary actually wasn't that bad. For porn. Which is pretty much what Fifty Shades is going to be anyway.
That said, now that the role of Christian Grey is unoccupied again, maybe the studio should just hire James Deen and be done with it. They'd be able to pay him a lot less, and he was sort of a fan favorite anyway.
