Movies - TV
The Seinfeld Crew Turned Down A Massive Payday To End The Show At Season 9
By MATT RAINIS
From 1989 to 1998, NBC broadcast nine seasons of "Seinfeld," one of the finest and most influential sitcoms ever. The network was prepared to spend extravagant sums of money to have the show last even longer, but Jerry Seinfeld said no.
In exchange for agreeing to a 10th season, Seinfeld was promised $5 million per episode; his salary in the ninth season was already astonishing at $1 million per episode. Seinfeld declined the substantial payout because he thought the show had reached its peak and wanted to finish it on his terms.
Executive producer Alec Berg talked about this, saying, "[The network] had offered to give him seven gazillion dollars and his own planet if he wanted to do another season. And he thought about it and said, 'The only reason to do another year would be money, and that would be a shame.'"