How Donald Sutherland missed a $20 million ‘Animal House’ payday

Hollywood giant Donald Sutherland died on Thursday at age 88 in Miami, after a long illness. 

His son, actor Kiefer Sutherland, announced on X, formerly Twitter, “With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away. I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film. Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that. A life well lived.” 

As tributes flooded in, a story about one of Sutherland’s early roles surfaced: 1978 comedy classic, “National Lampoon’s Animal House.” 

Sutherland was reportedly given a choice between taking a fee of either 2% of the film’s gross profits or $35,000. He opted for the latter – and he later acknowledged that mistake cost him a big payday.

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Directed by John Landis, the movie is set at the fictional Faber College (loosely based on Dartmouth College) and follows a fraternity of trouble-making frat boys such John “Bluto” Blutarsky (John Belushi) and Eric “Otter” Stratton (Tim Matheson) as they face off against rivals, throw parties and battle with the dean after they get put on “double secret probation.” Sutherland played Dave Jennings, a pot-smoking English professor who has an affair with a student, Katy (Karen Allen). 

The movie is a modern classic, and one of the most successful comedies of all time. But, studio execs didn’t have high expectations in 1978. 

According to the book “Fat, Drunk, and Stupid: The Inside Story Behind the Making of Animal House,” by Matty Simmons, Universal Studios boss Ned Tanen said after reading the first outline, “Everybody is drunk, or high or getting laid. I’d never make this movie.”

The studio eventually agreed to make the film for $3 million, but they thought that “Saturday Night Live” star Belushi wasn’t a big enough name.

“We had Belushi, but Universal still wanted another star. Now, I had been a flunky on the set of Kelly’s Heroes in Yugoslavia, and Donald Sutherland and I had gotten very friendly. I used to babysit Kiefer,” Landis told Entertainment Weekly in 1998. 

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“So I called Donald, and he said, ‘I’ll do it, but I’m not going to do it for scale. They have to pay me up front.’”

Simmons reported that the studio wanted a star, but “wouldn’t pay for a star,” leading to a negotiation that would end up as one of Sutherland’s regrets. 

“[Sutherland] first asked for $250,000 and, in Landis’s words, ‘The studio said, ‘Get the f – – k outta here!'” Simmons wrote. 

The studio countered that by offering $20,000 for a day’s work plus points – a percentage of the profits. 

According to the book, Sutherland told Landis: “I can’t take that offer. I just want the money. I don’t want any points in the movie.”

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Eventually, they settled on Sutherland making $35,000 with no “points.” 

The college comedy went on to earn $141 million at the box office against a $3 million budget. 

In 2024, it remains the 62nd highest (domestic) grossing R-rated movie of all time. 

In a 2012 interview on the “Opie and Anthony” radio show, Sutherland said that the number of points he was offered was 2%.

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When he was asked, “Do you know what would 2% roughly have translated into?” Sutherland smirked and responded, “I don’t want to know.”

“I don’t remember the numbers involved,” Landis told EW. “But had he taken a profit position, he’d have made at least $20 million.”