Jim Carrey Agreed To Do โ€˜Yes Manโ€™ Without A Salaryโ€ฆ And Ended Up Earning $50 Million
โ€” 30 March 2022

Jim Carrey Agreed To Do โ€˜Yes Manโ€™ Without A Salaryโ€ฆ And Ended Up Earning $50 Million

โ€” 30 March 2022

Jim Carrey is incredibly talented, widely beloved, and immensely successful. Thereโ€™s no need to harp on the subject: we all know itโ€™s true. What you may not know, however, is that this was perhaps best proven by Carrey in a film you probably donโ€™t even like. The biggest flex of Jim Carreyโ€™s career is taking a percentage of Yes Man instead of a salary and bringing home a light US$35 million (AU$48.6 million) as a result.

Youโ€™d be forgiven if you didnโ€™t remember Yes Man. Youโ€™ve probably seen this one before and thought: Jim Carrey plays a secretly well-meaning cynic who is put into a wacky circumstance against his will, where he is then forced to become a better guy. Liar Liar? No, not that one. The Mask? Wrong again. Mr Popperโ€™s Penguins? Bruce Almighty? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? No on all three counts.

Youโ€™d also be forgiven for feeling like the premise of Yes Man was a little familiar. Hell, even his role as the Grinch fits this bill. People just love to see Jim Carrey play an asshole who struggles against something ridiculous and the box office receipts of Yes Man only further prove that case.

RELATED: Jim Carrey Wrote Tupac Letters During The Rapperโ€™s 1995 Prison Sentence

This one features Jim Carrey Carl โ€“ a recently-divorced loan officer that says โ€œnoโ€ a lot โ€“ who attends a seminar in which he promises to say โ€œyesโ€ to everything that comes his way going forward. You canโ€™t even make this shit up.

While itโ€™s not completely unheard of for actors to take a small percentage of a filmโ€™s profits on top of their flat rate, according to The Telegraph, Jim Carrey did not feel he needed to be paid upfront at all. Instead, he knew his worth, stepped up to the job, and walked home with a casual $50 million in his pocket. Canโ€™t say no to that.

Given the marketability of Yes Man rested almost solely on the shoulders of Jim Carrey, it seemed only fair that he would take 36.2% of the filmโ€™s profits. While that might seem like the obvious way to go for someone of the star power of Carrey, itโ€™s worth pointing out that he was coming off films that underperformed commercially, such as Fun with Dick and Jane.

For what itโ€™s worth, Yes Man wasnโ€™t particularly well-received by the critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 46%, with Carrey being widely considered as a standout in an otherwise mediocre film. Despite being quite unfunny, the film made over US$223.2 million (AU$301.8 million) on its US$70 million (AU$94.7 million) budget. As Business Insider reported, this netted Carrey around US$35 million (AU$48.6 million) when factoring in his slice of the pie.

Well, there you have it. Like his character in the film, Jim Carrey said โ€œyesโ€ to an opportunity with a risk involved, only to be rewarded handsomely for it. Jim Carrey was able to get the last laughโ€ฆ Or, in the case of Yes Man, probably the only laugh.

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