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Jack Nicholson took a $4 million pay cut to play the Joker. It turned out to be one of the most expensive mistakes Warner Bros. ever made. Back in 1989, Nicholson was already one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. He could reportedly command around $10 million for a movie, so getting him to play the Joker wasn’t going to be cheap. But Warner Bros. had a problem. The studio was taking a financial gamble on Tim Burton’s Batman, and Nicholson’s asking price was a serious expense. So Nicholson agreed to take $6 million upfront instead. Sounds like a win for the studio, right? Well, there’s a reason you should always read the small print. In exchange for taking less money upfront, Nicholson negotiated a percentage of the film’s earnings, a share of Joker merchandise profits and a number of other perks. He even secured approval over his Joker makeup and had his shooting schedule arranged around Los Angeles Lakers home games. And then there was the part that made the deal even more interesting: his reported protection against future Batman sequels. Batman became a worldwide phenomenon. The film was a huge box-office success, and its merchandise business generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. Nicholson’s deal reportedly earned him somewhere between $60 million and $90 million from the movie. Think about that. He took a $4 million pay cut and walked away with a payday that most actors couldn’t dream of. Warner Bros. thought they were negotiating down the price of getting the Joker. Jack Nicholson was negotiating a share of what the Joker would become.