When Futurama returns to TV next year, it might be without the show’s original voice cast. Talks have broken down between 20th Century Fox TV and stars Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche and Tress MacNeille over how much they should be paid to take part in the show. The studio announced last month that it would produce 26 new episodes of Futurama, and that Comedy Central was on board to begin airing the new episodes in mid-2010. As part of the announcement, the show’s producers said stars including West, Sagal and DiMaggio had all signed on to return.
Turns out that wasn’t true. The stars had all expressed interest in returning. But with the budget for Futurama dramatically slashed, the salary offers came in well below what the thesps were asking. As a result, 20th has put out a casting call to find replacement voice actors for the show.
It’s not the first time 20th has gone that route during a tough negotiation on one of its toons. The studio previously made a similar move on The Simpsons when it couldn’t come to a deal with its stars. Casting feelers were sent out for replacements, but a deal was eventually made with the original cast. The situation is unusual this time around in that 20th and Comedy Central have been kicking around ways to make Futurama, originally produced for a broadcast network (Fox), make financial sense for a cable run. Yet there’s also still a possibility — and a window built in — for Futurama to run on a broadcast network first.
It’s believed that the Futurama cast members were asking for around $75,000 per episode; it was not clear what 20th was offering. Calls to the voice stars’ reps were not immediately returned. Other costs slashed in the process led to a smaller writing staff and a shorter delivery schedule.
“We love the ‘Futurama’ voice performers and absolutely wanted to use them, but unfortunately, we could not meet their salary demands,” 20th Century Fox TV said in a statement. “While replacing these talented actors will be difficult, the show must go on. We are confident that we will find terrific new performers to give voice to Matt and David’s brilliantly subversive characters.”
Source: Variety
I don’t get it. Based on interviews it seems like the cast really loves the show and Billy has said it’s the best job he’s ever had so I figured that money wouldn’t be that big of an influence on whether to return to show or not. I have no idea what would be considered a reasonable salary based on the show, actors, and situation so I can’t tell if the cast is being greedy or if Fox is being stingy.
What a load of crap. They’re using scare tactics to get the original cast to sign. Are they really stupid enough to think that the show will succeed if they change all the voices? It will piss fans off royally, and I have no doubt they’ll decide to boycott the show entirely. Word to Fox: quit being a drama queen and pay your actors the money they deserve!
This is shame for FOX, or better say actors are those who should be ashamed! But it’s not really their fault- FOX doesn’t have right tactic of keeping their actors, so they have a lot of space for blackmailing of this kind…
There is only one answer to this problem- Clearly defined contracts without any space for situations like this!
Even if they change voice actors, and the show do recover from potential failure the same situation may happen in the next season, and we’ll have the same story all over again… :S
I hope they are able to keep the cast. The show would not be the same without them. If they do replace the cast, I’m unlikely to continue watching even though I’m a huge Futurama fan.
Possibly scare tactics, I won’t be happy if its not the original cast obviously.
The way I see it is that they mean it, we’ve seen in the past actors are greedy, they want the $$$ coming in and they believe that the price they have stated is not good enough. I think the amount of money they believe is alright is stupid. FOX can see through this, they know that the cast want to do Futurama, but they have cut the budgets. I think honestly FOX can’t afford them.
Still don’t like FOX.
For me, it’s the original cast or nothing. Futurama without Billy West is not Futurama.
If they change the cast, ratings will drop like flies because the viewers were probably used to those normal voices.
They better not do this with the Simpsons.(They probably won’t)
@Ashley- That was my fear either, but when I heard voices of the original casts doublers it was such a relief: I couldn’t say difference! 🙂
So, even if they do chance voices in the Simpsons, most of the viewers wont see the difference at all…
I hope they keep the old cast!
ill still watch but itll kill the ratings n the simpsons nratings are gooing down because of hulu so people dont stay up n if futurama goes on hulu it’ll be dead again sigh i hate hulu so much someone should aware the creaters of that
yea it would hurt the ratings thus again canceling the show. But i think futerama had a good run and plus they still make their comics.
I’ll still watch if they re-cast it. Personally it annoys me when actors ask for more than they’re worth. Especially with voice acting, where actors can focus only on their part without waiting for others, and usually can voice their character’s scenes for one episode in a couple of hours, and that’s if the director’s picky. $75,000 for that is too much, and FOX will easily find new actors who will be ecstatic to receive such payment.
Also understand that with cartoons the specific actors don’t have as much of an effect as with live action programs. Finding someone who sounds like someone else is pretty easy. The change might not even be noticeable to someone just tuning in.
My only annoyance is that they’re only producing 26 episodes. But that’s pretty typical for American shows. I suppose I should just be glad I’m getting anything at all, considering Futurama was previously canceled.
I certainly hope these are just… rumours, because as Ryan said: Billy Is Futurama
“only producing 26 episodes”? How long do you expect a season to last these days? Most people were anticipating a 13 episode season, so we should be ecstatic that they got a full one instead.
anyway, yeah I hope they keep the original cast, I really do, it’d be hard to get replacements that could do it just right 🙁
@Charles: I’m definitely ecstatic. But I’d prefer an episode per week, minus the summer months, so about 40 episodes for the season. Like I said, I am very excited and can’t wait to see these episodes.
@ Hello- Days when we could have one new episode per week (minus summer) are distant past (unfortunately)…
I’m very happy because we’re going to see this show again, and I am also happy with 26 episodes. I agree that it’s not as good as we all would like, but it’s better to get anything than nothing. That’s the reality…
I think the recasting issue is overrated, but I’m still glad to see that the original cast will be doing the voices.
In the Sci-Fi show “Tripping the Rift”, Six’s charater was voiced by Gina Gershon in season 1, Carmen Electra in season 2 and Jenny McCarthy in season 3. Call me whatever, but when I watched the series on DVD, I didn’t even notice the difference…