The scenes of Clooney as the President in Spy Kids 3 were allegedly shot by Clooney in a day in his own living room with a camcorder he just had lying around.
See also: the postmodern piece of kino known as Hoodwinked!, which somehow managed to grab Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, Jim Belushi, Patrick Warburton, Xzibit on a microbudget without the help of any major studio.
Patrick Warburton is the only one on that list who was actually on board with the film in its small budget phase. The rest came aboard after the Weinstein Company stepped in to be the distributor.
Picking up movies that were already finished for cheap and then using industry connections and capital to forcefully inject more star power into the voice cast is apparently something the Weinsteins did several times. They did the same thing to The Magic Roundabout (marketed in America as Doogal).
Funnily enough, getting the Weinsteins involved with Hoodwinked! in the first place was a chance encounter made possible by Robert Rodriguez's wife.
I can't imagine many more projects tondonjust for fun.
Thats a lot of Elijah woods horror roles, things that looked fun.
So I'm sure that's why they did it
Yeah and even when actors get paid "low sums" it's usually like six figures still, at least regarding projects like Spy Kids.
And even if it was "just" five figures, if its above 50k and last less than a year to film, it's more than most people make and the actors who do these aren't exactly broke to begin with.
Orlando Bloom "only" got 175k for the lotr trilogy.
If someone paid me 175k to fuck about as an elf in New Zealand for 438 days, I'd be willing to suck their dick on the spot. And I don't generally like sucking dick too much.
Orlando Bloom “only” got 175k for the lotr trilogy.
I'd say I feel bad for him considering how much money the LOTR trilogy pulled and how great he was in it (like everyone tbh), but at least he got a lot of recognition for it, being pretty much unknown to the world before LOTR and getting a lead role in Pirates right after.