It's official, Brad is back.
"Brad? Brad was gone?" Ray Romano quipped when Brad Garrett showed up for work Wednesday after ending a two-week-plus salary strike.
Everybody is now apparently lovey dovey again, happy with whatever money they're getting for working on Romano's hit CBS sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond.
"I'm thrilled to be back working with the best cast on television," Garrett said in a release. "CBS, Ray and Phil [Rosenthal, the show's executive producer] really stepped up to make this happen. I'm looking forward to the new season where I'll take the art of overacting to a whole new level."
The big lug's holdout for a bigger paycheck forced producers to write his character, hang-dog brother Robert Barone, out of the premiere episode of the show's upcoming eighth season, airing September 22. Although CBS initially indicated Garrett would also be written out of the second show, airing September 29, the network has reversed itself and says Garrett will indeed be back for episode two now that he's back on set.
The whole Raymond mess started after Romano signed a monster $50 million deal for the eighth season. Of all the supporting cast, Garrett was the most ticked off, because his reported $150,000-per-episode paycheck was substantially less than the rest of the Barone bunch, Patricia Heaton, Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle. With scads of money being thrown at Romano and Rosenthal, Garrett hoped some would trickle down his way.
It took 10 days of being a no-show, but he made his point. Although the exact amount it took to make the Emmy-winning Garrett return as the doofus brother has not been disclosed, Daily Variety reports the actor "will get a substantial pay hike," on a par with his costars' reported $250,000 per episode for this season. He would stand to earn about $315,000 per episode in the unlikely event the show runs on into a ninth season--but both star and producer have indicated they will probably pull the plug on Raymond after this season.
Garrett will also reportedly receive "retroactive compensation" for previous seasons, which could add as much as $2.5 million to the $6 million he'll earn this season. He will also get a slice of backend profits. Although Daily Variety tags it as only a half point, it will add up to multimillions once the series begins its presumably long life in syndication. The network, production company, producers and star all had to agree to give up a sliver of their own profits to make this happen.
No immediate word on whether the dispute will put a damper on the plans the producers and CBS had about spinning off Garrett's character if and when Raymond comes to an end.
Raymond is one of CBS' biggest hits, ranking behind only Friends as the most popular comedy on TV, averaging 16.8 million viewers a week.
Unlike Friends, where the six stars' one-for-all-and-all-for-one bond gave them major leverage power in salary negotiations, there was apparently no coordinated effort among the costars on Raymond. Heaton, Roberts and Boyle all relied on medical excuses to briefly avoid coming to the set over the past two weeks--headache, knee problem, medication allergy were cited, respectively--but Garrett stayed away longer because he was just plain mad, a tactic which in turn reportedly made the CBS brass very mad.
Garrett's attorney, Michael Gendler, who hammered out the deal with Garrett's managers, credited CBS's head honcho Les Moonves with being "incredibly statesmanlike." He tactfully told Variety, "Les really made this thing happen. When we started talking, it was handled very professionally and aboveboard." Moonves reportedly signed off on the deal from his box at the U.S. Open.
Rosenthal, who had to dig into his own pocket to keep crew members happy when the start of production was delayed because of the actors' money gripes, played it straight. "We had a big contract negotiation," he said. "Now it feels like a hit show."