Seinfeld Confident Cast Negotiations Will Work Out

Jerry Seinfeld’s reaction to the recent reports of his castmates requesting $1 million an episode to return for a ninth season next fall? Much ado about nothing.

Speaking out for the first time since he decided to do another season of the show that bears his name, Seinfeld did not seem fazed at all by the stories swirling around his three co-stars and their salary demands.

“I have found that when you have a situation where all parties want something to work out, it usually works,” he said. “The cast, I know, would love to do another year. Obviously, NBC would love to have us back. I want to do another year. And the negotiations, that’s kind of a separate issue that’s not really part of the show. Onstage, we’re still having a great time and we just had our season-high rating. Everything is going really well.”

While surely a headline grabber, the $1 million per episode being sought by Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander was hardly a deal-breaking ultimatum, according to sources close to the talks.

These sources say it was simply the first number put forth by reps of the stars, and that “Seinfeld” producer Castle Rock countered with drastically lower numbers, less than double the approximately $150,000 an episode each of the supporting cast had been earning. That offer was turned down out of hand, the logic being that NBC and Castle Rock, which stand to earn hundreds of millions from another season of the hit show, can afford a bigger increase.

While the “Seinfeld” talks have been contentious, the feeling from Hollywood dealmakers is there’s too big a potential payday for all involved for there not to be a resolution somewhere between those $300,000 and $1 million figures.

Which is pretty much how Seinfeld - who makes a reported $500,000 a show and has earned some $45 million in rerun rights - sees it.

“It’s like normal negotiations … representation and networks and people are doing their thing,” said Seinfeld, who declined to get into contract specifics.

Any hope his castmates had of getting Castle Rock to move the show to another network seems dead. Seinfeld has all but sealed his own deal with NBC and he won’t return without his co-stars. “The show’s the four of us,” he said. “I won’t do it if they don’t come back.”

He also promised that this will be the last time these kinds of talks will occur. “I think next season will be the last,” he said.

Of course, he has said that before. In fact, the last two seasons were expected to be the last ones for the show.

“I was the one who initially was opposed to (returning),” he explained. “But as (this) season went on, it seemed like everyone was still enjoying it, and the audience seemed to be enjoying it and we started to get some really nice critical reaction. For me personally, and I apologize for how corny this might sound, financially I didn’t need to do another year, creatively I didn’t need to do another year, but I felt I owed the audience something for the tremendous support they’ve given the show over the years.

“I could tell the audience didn’t want the show to end right now. I felt I owed a debt of gratitude to the audience, and that’s why I said we should do one more year. And the cast felt the same way. I’m not doing it for the money, I guarantee you. Not that the money is bad. But this has been my heart and soul, this show.”