Entertainment

The 'Stranger Things' Season 3 Cast Just Reportedly Received A MAJOR Pay Raise

by Parry Ernsberger

According to The Hollywood Reporter, some of the Stranger Things Season 3 stars are reportedly salary increases — and the alleged bumps are pretty huge. After two wildly successful seasons of the show, the cast is no doubt deserving of some extra dough, but the March 19 article from The Hollywood Reporter says that the Stranger Things kid stars, in particular, could reportedly be making about 12 times the haul they got for Seasons 1 and 2. Reps for Netflix had no comment for Bustle when asked about the Stranger Things Season 3 salary increases.

An unnamed source told The Hollywood Reporter that the main cast members are separated into a few different salary tiers. The report didn't mention any of the second season's new stars, such as Sadie Sink, who plays Max Mayfield, and Dacre Montgomery, who plays Sink's step-brother, Billy Hargrove.

According to the source, the first tier is for the grown-ups: Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers) and David Harbour (Jim Hopper). Most of the main kids — Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), and Noah Schnapp (Will Byers) — make up the second tier. The third tier, the article notes, consists of the three primary teens: Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), and Joe Keery (Steve Harrington).

It's unclear which tier, exactly, Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) falls into, but The Hollywood Reporter confirmed last year that reps for the start made negotiations for her solo. It's assumed that Brown makes at least as much as the rest of the kid cast, but some sources are alleging that she may end up making as much as the adults — Ryder and Harbour.

Regardless, the new reported salaries for the show's main kids — Wolfhard, Matarazzo, McLaughlin, and Schnapp — are enough to afford them an endless amount of game plays at the arcade. Heck, they could probably buy an actual arcade with what they might be making.

The sources claim that each of the four child stars were previously making around $20,000 an episode in the first two seasons, but will now reportedly be making a whopping $250,000 each. Ryder and Barbour, according to the sources, who were bringing in $100,000 and $80,000 an episode, respectively, will reportedly get bumped up to $350,000 each. Dyer, Heaton, and Keery's original salaries were not noted, but the sources say they'll all be receiving around $150,000 per episode in Season 3.

So, yeah. If the rumors are true, it looks like everybody in Stranger Things will be bringing in the big bucks. But, the kids — if their salaries are indeed going from $20,000 an episode to $250,000 — that amounts to 1,200 times their paydays from Seasons 1 and 2. Let that sink in for just a minute: 1,200 times.

It's kind of interesting that they reportedly didn't get any sort of per-episode raise at all between the first and second seasons, though. The show was a pretty big hit right off the bat, and everyone in the cast basically became major celebrities overnight. They did, however, reportedly get $60,000 bonuses "once it became clear that the show was a phenomenon," according to The Hollywood Reporter — although it doesn't specify when, exactly, those bonuses were handed out.

Regardless, it's probably safe to assume that they'll all continue to be successful in their future projects. Wolfhard, Dyer, Keery, and Harbour have each been cast in some star-studded upcoming films, and both Sink and Brown are basically mini fashion icons in-the-making.

Money isn't everything, of course, but it's certainly well-deserved in the case of the Stranger Things cast. Without them, there's no telling who else would have become a victim of The Upside Down. Not all superheroes wear capes — some of them dress up like Ghostbusters instead.