LOS ANGELES — When Wolfgang Puck lays out the annual post-Oscar banquet in Hollywood on Sunday, he might want to think about doggie bags.

 

Ralph Nelson/Warner Brothers Pictures

'The Blind Side' Sandra Bullock cut her usual $10 million fee to $5 million for this film, but stands to make $20 million or more on the hit.

 

François Duhamel/Weinstein Company and Universal Pictures

‘Inglourious Basterds’ Brad Pitt attracted hefty upfront fees.

 

Summit Entertainment, via European Pressphoto Agency

'The Hurt Locker' Some actors in this successful film, starring Jeremy Renner as a soldier in Iraq, often worked at or near guild minimums.

 

Weta/20th Century Fox

'Avatar' Sam Worthington earned upfront fees above guild minimums, but less than enough to make him feel financially secure.

Movie stars, who not so long ago vied to make $20 million or even $25 million a picture, have seen their upfront salaries shrink in the last several years as DVD sales fell, star-driven vehicles stumbled at the box office and studios grew increasingly tightfisted.

How bad is it?

Pretty bad.

Most of the three-dozen or so top-billed actors in the 10 films up for best picture in this Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, including blockbusters like “Up” and “Avatar,”appear to have received relatively minuscule upfront payments for their work.

When the estimated salaries of all 10 of the top acting nominees are combined, the total is only a little larger than the $20 million that went to Julia Roberts for her appearance in “Erin Brockovich,” a best-picture nominee in 2001, or to Russell Crowe for “Master and Commander,”nominated in 2004.

Peter Dekom, a film industry lawyer who co-wrote the book “Not on My Watch: Hollywood vs. the Future,” pegged the general devaluation of movie stars to a lack of interest among younger viewers.

“Stars don’t resonate with the ‘what’s next’ ” crowd, theorized Mr. Dekom. “They attract an over-30 audience, which is going to the movies less in an impaired economy.”

Specific salaries and deal terms are notoriously difficult to pin down. (The estimates are based on interviews with a dozen producers, agents and executives who were briefed on the various deals but spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid conflict with the actors and companies involved.)

Producers and others behind this year’s best-picture candidates uniformly declined to comment or sidestepped queries about what their actors were paid.

“Unfortunately, I am not going to be able to be of any help,” Stan Rosenfield, a spokesman for George Clooney, said in response to a query about Mr. Clooney’s pay for his work in Paramount Pictures’ “Up in the Air.”

That film was made for about $25 million. It was possible only because Mr. Clooney, according to people briefed on the film’s finances but speaking anonymously to avoid conflict with the star or Paramount, took an initial fee that was roughly a tenth of the $20 million that Leonardo DiCaprio, a frequent Oscar contender, has received in the past.

Once upon a time, the biggest stars were rewarded with deals that paid them a percentage of so-called first-dollar gross receipts; that is, they began sharing in the profits from the first ticket sale, not waiting until the studio turned a profit. Now studios often insist that even top stars forgo large advance payments in return for a share of the profits after a studio has recouped its cash investment.

The fashionable deal now is called “CB zero.” It stands for “cash-break zero,” and refers to an arrangement under which the star or filmmaker begins collecting a share of profits after the studio has reached the break-even point.

Such deals can be extremely lucrative when they give stars a substantial share in home-video revenue. So Sandra Bullock, who cut her usual $10 million fee to just $5 million for “The Blind Side,” another of this year’s nominees, will eventually make $20 million or more from the movie because it was a hit. Mr. Clooney similarly stands to make additional millions when all the revenue from “Up in the Air” is finally counted.

A rare star, in rare circumstances, can still command the kind of deal that was more prevalent five years ago. Angelina Jolie, for instance, still receives $20 million for appearing in an action film like “Salt,” set for release in July by Columbia Pictures, according to two people who were briefed on her deal.

Geyer Kosinski, who manages Ms. Jolie, and a spokesperson for Columbia Pictures both declined to comment.

In this year’s best-picture roster, the star that attracted the largest upfront fee appears to be Brad Pitt, for his work in “Inglourious Basterds.” People briefed on that film’s finances put his initial payment at $10 million, with more to come from a participation in profits.

But Mr. Pitt’s co-stars and the stars of pictures as impressive as “The Hurt Locker,” which has emerged as a front-runner in the Oscar race after winning a series of professional society and critics’ awards, or “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” another nominee, often worked at or near guild minimums.

For the most part guild minimums are set in a provision of the Screen Actors Guildcontract that Hollywood cognoscenti refer to as Schedule F. It requires than an actor receive at least $65,000 for work in a feature film. Overtime is negotiable. The actor must be fed and, at some point, allowed to rest.

The pay for a number of actors in “District 9,” “A Serious Man” and “An Education” was at or close to guild minimums, as each was made on a relatively low budget. As for the ultrahigh-budget “Avatar,” the highest paid appears to have been Sigourney Weaver, though she almost certainly worked for a small fraction of the $11 million she was reported to have been paid for “Alien: Resurrection” in 1997.

Zoë Saldana and Sam Worthington, meanwhile, got fees that were more than guild minimums but less than enough to make them feel financially secure, despite having acted in a picture with over $2.5 billion in ticket sales around the world.

“Every actor fears unemployment,” Mr. Worthington said in a January interview with The Herald Sun in Australia. He has continued to work frequently in forthcoming films like“Clash of the Titans” and “The Texas Killing Fields,” said Mr. Worthington, because it “beats sitting there waiting for the phone to ring thinking, give me some work I’ve got bills to pay.”

At least Mr. Worthington wasn’t scratching for fees in the animation world.

“I was paid for sessions,” said Ed Asner, a veteran actor who provided the voice for Carl Fredricksen, an aging adventurer in “Up,” a best-picture nominees. Typically, the eight or 10 sessions required of a voice actor might pay $50,000 — but only if the actor negotiates a guarantee that boosts his pay above union minimums that could yield only a third of that.

Still, Mr. Asner, who spoke by phone last week, said he ultimately received much more because the Walt Disney Company’s Pixar unit, which produced “Up,” augmented his small front-end fee with bonuses that came with the film’s success: it took in more than $723 million in ticket sales around the world.

“If it does well, you do well,” Mr. Asner said.