James McAvoy says Split is the only film that regularly pays him residuals. “The only one that really consistently pays me is Split,” he said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with host Josh Horowitz, according to SSBCrack and IANS.
“Our first residual check came at the end of the first weekend. It was bonkers,” McAvoy said. He explained that the film was already in profit, according to IANS via MENAFN.
McAvoy gave rough figures from memory: a budget of “like $6 million,” about $30 million spent on advertising and an opening weekend of about $40 million. MENAFN notes these are his own approximations.
He credited director M. Night Shyamalan for the film's efficiency. He said Shyamalan made Split and Glass on modest budgets and stayed focused, according to SSBCrack. In Split, McAvoy plays a kidnapper with 23 personalities, and he returned to the role in Glass.
Other films pay far less, he said. McAvoy told Horowitz he gets sporadic checks from his other work, sometimes as small as 25 cents, and joked that mailing them can cost more than they are worth. SSBCrack says he also mentioned Wanted in this context.