This is the staggering amount the cast of Friends is being paid for the reunion special

Regardless of your TV show leanings, the Twitter-verse was set ablaze on the weekend when news of the Friends cast reuniting for an HBO special was announced, with the cast taking to social media to confirm the news.

While the faces of David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and Jennifer Aniston have hardly left our consciousness thanks to a run of movies and TV shows that have seen the cast gain their own individual star power, it has been some time since we found ourselves invested in the relationship of Ross and Rachel.

According to Variety, the cast will return to the original Friends soundstage, Stage 24, on the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank to celebrate the long-running series, which first aired in 1994 and enjoyed a 10-year run. Enough time has passed since the final airing of Friends to make this a reunion special worth watching, even though pressure will certainly be high for it to live up to the show’s high expectations of hilarity, wit, and comedic good-timing.

That said, when you’re offered $2.5 million USD for a single episode, as has been revealed, it’s unlikely that you’d turn such an offer down.

It’s a significant increase from what the stars made at the height of the success of Friends. In the third season, they were paid $75,000 USD per episode, increasing to $85,000 in season four, before eventuating to $750,000 in seasons seven and eight. But in seasons nine and ten, the stars made $1 million an episode, catapulting Aniston, Cox and Kudrow to the top of the highest-paid TV actresses of all time.

There’s no denying that $2.5 million is a staggering amount of money. But in today’s age, where TV shows are streamed around the world and followed with a cult-like intensity, the stars of the small screen have quite rightly found themselves to be some of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. Consequently, $2.5 million for characters that have become iconic in pop culture is hardly surprising.

Business Insider reports that Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead makes $1 million USD per episode, alongside his co-star Andrew Lincoln. Similarly, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman were able to negotiate $1 million salaries for the second season of the HBO Emmy-winning drama, Big Little Lies.

This comes after the stars of The Big Bang Theory – Kaley Cuoco, Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kunal Nayyar, and Simon Helberg – also made $1 million per episode. Galecki even stood to make more than $50 million including profits if he agreed to stay on the show for two more years.

And while Game of Thrones may have defined a generation, catapulting its young stars into a tier of fame few could have ever imagined, the stars weren’t earning quite the big bucks you’d expect. Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke made $500,000 an episode, according to reports from Variety, while co-stars like Sophie Turner made $175,000 an episode.

It used to be the case that such earnings would be reserved for the world’s top movie stars, but when TV shows carry cultural cache that few films can rival, a view only heightened by the ease of streaming, now it seems such exorbitant pay cheques are to be expected. As they say, “That’s some Seinfeld money,” these days, a nod to the sitcom that perhaps started it all.

The highly popular show saw its stars earn $1 million an episode during the final season. And as for Jerry Seinfeld, regarded as one of the most successful comedians of all time, he was offered $5 million per episode (or $110 million per year) just to do a tenth season of the show. Of course, Seinfeld turned down the offer. But with a stake in the show, Seinfeld continues to reel in a lot of cash from re-runs of the show.

Vulture reported that the show has generated $3.1 billion USD since entering syndication in 1995, with Seinfeld and co-creator Larry David making $400 million for the most recent syndication cycle. And after inking a deal with Netflix, which will see the show depart Hulu in 2021 and enter a five-year, worldwide deal with the streaming giant, it’s believed Netflix paid more than the $500 million USD NBCUniversal paid for The Office.

The Friends cast might have a way to go before they are making the same kind of “Seinfeld money” as the comedian, but there’s nothing like a multi-million pay cheque to sweeten the deal. As for the rest of us, we can only hope the special reunion lives up to its expectations.