Despite it being a huge hit, American Pie only earned co-star Seann William Scott a shockingly low salary.
While American Pie was one of the biggest comedy hits of the nineties, grossing over $235 million on an $11 million budget (and millions more on DVD), one of its stars received a pretty paltry salary. Seann William Scott, who stole the movie as the breakout character Stifler, was a newcomer to movies at the time and, according to a recent interview, only earned $8000 for his role.
According to Deadline, Scott told T.V. host Rick Elsen that he was so broke after the movie that he went to work at the L.A. Zoo as a Churro guy. He spent most of the check buying a used Thunderbird, saying that while it sounds like very little money, “it was a lot of money for me at the time.”
At any rate, Scott was soon able to quit his LA Zoo job as Stifler became a breakout character, earning him a leading roles in the comedies Road Trip and Dude Where’s My Car (which may soon get a sequel), which came out a year later. Stifler also became a staple of the American Pie series, earning a cool $5 million for the most recent film, American Reunion. According to THR, his co-stars weren’t so lucky in that last movie, with only Biggs, Eugene Levy and Alyson Hannigan earning comparable money. Other stars from the series only earned in the $500-700,000 range, with Tara Reid only earning $250,000.
Apparently, the franchise is still pretty evergreen for the studio, spawning a slew of DTV sequels, and plans are apparently in the works for a fifth film (although it would likely be tamer), with it coming up on the first movie’s 25th anniversary.
Are you surprised by how little Seann William Scott earned for American Pie? Let us know in the comments.