Edward Furlong only made $35,000 for Terminator 2. Arnie made 15 MILLION!

Past his prime?

What Arnold made has no bearing on what Furlong made or was paid. Arnold was THE draw of the film and his agent or himself negotiated properly. Actually considering how successful the movie was maybe Arnold should have got more and they under-negotiated!

As you aware, what people are paid is negotiated beforehand whether that is a straight amount or a percentage. It's not like all the money comes in and some goblin divides it up to his liking in the moment. Oh this movie made a lot of money so lets throw Furlong a bigger bone. It's all determined beforehand which you know.

Furlong and his agent probably should have pushed harder. I would find it hard to believe he only received 35k for the film and nothing from sponsors, advertisements or appearances. Kind of like how Stallone claims he made only 35k from Rocky 1, but on the backend he got something like 2 million dollars.

Sounds fair. 35k in 1991 for an unknown actor starring in a big blockbuster movie is pretty good.

For comparison, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega were each paid in the low 6 figures for The Force Awakens and are now worth just shy of $10 million each.

The difference here is that Edward Furlong didn't play his cards right and squandered his future on booze/drugs.

LINDA HAMILTON ONLY RECEIVED 1 MILLION FOR T2...SO WHAT DO YOU THINK ROBERT PATRICK(WHO WAS BROKE AND ONE OF 20 SKINNY UNKNOWN GUYS UP FOR THE ROLE) GOT PAID? I BET IT WAS LESS THAN LINDA HAMILTON...AND SHE WAS AN ESTABISHED ACTRESS AND STAR OF THE ORIGINAL TERMINATOR...HOW ABOUT JOE MORTON?...HE WAS INTEGRAL TO THE FILM...BUT I BET HE GOT EVEN LESS THAN PATRICK WHO GOT LESS THAN HAMILTON.

Don’t be naive. That’s how businesses and movies work. Arnold had become a major star by then and he was one of the main reasons why the first one was successful. So they paid him a lot more to return for the sequel. All lead actors are paid more for sequels of successful movies.

Furlong, like you said, was an unknown and he was paid the rate unknowns make and what their managers negotiate. He is also a lousy actor and irritating as hell in T2. That’s why his career went nowhere. I think they paid him way too much.

Blame him and his lousy manager. Not Cameron or Arnold.

Actually, it was $75,000, not $35,000. Equivelent to about $150k today.

Non-actor Edward Furlong with his lesbian haircut, cracking voice, and annoying character helped ruin the movie for me, so any amount of money paid to him was too much as far as I'm concerned.

A much better example of movie pay disparity is Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber (1994). He was only paid $50,000 while Jim Carrey got $7 million. Unlike Furlong, Daniels was an established actor (rather than some dipshit kid off the street), and a pretty good one at that.

With that said, $50,000 is a lot of money just for playing make-pretend in front of a camera for a couple/few months, rather than say, loading semi trailers, bailing hay, or digging ditches, which would make you far less money.