For those who were very upset over the news that 20th Century Fox was booting the voice cast of Futurama off the show for money reasons, have released a statement that said the entire voice cast; John DiMaggio, Billy West, Katey Sagal, Maurice LaMarche and Tress MacNeille will return for the next season.
“We are thrilled to have our incredible cast back,” creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen said in a statement. “The call has already gone out to the animators to put the mouths back on the characters.”
Instead of the $75,000 per episode the actors were asking, it is believed now that the cast members will receive less than $40,000 per episode.
In this day and age, where everyone is connected and news circulates the globe in a matter of nanoseconds, I am beginning to think that both the studios and actors in H’wood are using the Intardwebz to start a rumor, see how it sits, then make adjustments after that. Leading up to this announcement, it seemed pretty clear Fox wasn’t going to budge, but then following the release on sites like Major Spoilers, and the resulting Comic-Con uproar, suddenly, a week later, everything is hunky-dory. If the big wigs want to create an Intardwebz storm, and use us as the sounding board, there’s no need to go about it in a sneaky fashion, just contact Major Spoilers, put both sides on the record, and we’ll let our readers work it out for you.
4 Comments
Great news at last! Here I was starting to worry that Futurama might not come back after all.
I too believe you are right about how these studios are using the internet to test the ground before making decisions, I feel kind of duped but perhaps it is for the best, at least they are listening the fans now.
Thank you! Things just wouldn’t be the same without without the core cast…
So, like, Fox is going to use the internets the same way that everybody else does? To leak gossip/rumors/grievances/dirty laundry? Whoa. Color me, um, unshocked? :)
I’m surprised they were able to negotiate it. Still, its good. I noticed this week I am just not seeing the number of CAR commercials as I used to. …which only relates to this in as much as even big advertisers have cut way back, and the networks still have these huge contracts. If they can keep it alive (fingers crossed) then maybe they will get more $ in Futurama III.