James McAvoy has revealed the low-budget film that continues to earn him “bonkers” residual cheques.
The BAFTA winner receives regular pay cheques for a movie he made a decade ago – 2016’s horror flick Split, in which he played a man with dissociative identity disorder.
The movie, directed by M. Night Shyamalan and released by Blumhouse Productions, was pulled together on a budget of $9 million (£6.7 million) but raked in a whopping $278 million (£207 million) at the box office, making it one of the most unexpectedly lucrative roles of James’s career.
“You get the odd cheque for, you know, a couple 100 quid here or sometimes you get checks for, like, 25 cents and you’re like, ‘It literally costs more to post this than it did for me to cash it,'” the actor explained during an interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “But the only one that really consistently pays me is Split.”
He went on to describe how the low-budget release had proved so profitable.
“I think it was made for like $6 million or something like that? And let’s say they spent 30 advertising it. In our first weekend, we made 40, so we were in profit,” James, 47, recalled. “Our first residual cheque came at the end of the first weekend. It was bonkers.”
The California Schemin’ director added he was still in awe of his Split director’s savvy and revealed he was heavily influenced by how well prepared and communicative M. Knight had been in the process of making both the film and its sequel, Glass.
“The thing I took away from him is his preparedness,” James shared. “He made that film, and Glass, on incredibly modest budgets, and very focused on how he would maximise his day and maximise his shots and maximise what he got out of the story by just being incredibly well-prepared and being able to share that and communicate that with the crew.”
