Oscars might be nice, but TV is where the dough's at – especially for Hollywood's biggest names.
Three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep is set to earn $US825,000 ($1.1 million) per episode for her work in JJ Abrams' upcoming Warner Bros TV mini series The Nix, the Hollywood Reporter notes.
More Entertainment Videos
Meryl Streep gets millions for TV Series
As the television market gets competitive, actors and producers are scooping huge salaries.
Streep's paycheque on the series - based on the New York Times bestseller by Nathan Hill, about a college professor who reunites with his hippie mother decades after she abandoned him - is part of a growing trend, fuelled by competition between Netflix, HBO and other streaming sites, that's wooing A-listers to the small screen, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
"Many on the network side blame Netflix, which will spend upward of $US6 billion on original content this year and which kicked off the spree in 2013 with a $US100 million commitment for two seasons of Kevin Spacey's House Of Cards," the Hollywood Reporter notes. "But now it's not just Netflix."
![Meryl Streep's move to the small screen has scored her a massive payday.](/web/20161118234903im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/n/1/6/2/w/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gssd8p.png/1479471096618.jpg)
Streep's former Deer Hunter co-star Robert De Niro, for example, is making similar coin on an upcoming series from Silver Linings Playbook director David O. Russell, earning $US750,000 ($1.01 million) per episode. The series is reportedly a 20-parter, so you do the math.
While the salaries on streaming's original content may be climbing, stars on already-established hit favourites continue to reap in the most bucks, the Hollywood Reporter says.
![The cast of <i>The Big Bang Theory</i> have been raking in over $US1 million per episode since 2014.](/web/20161118234903im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/k/l/n/i/2/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gssd8p.png/1479471096618.jpg)
And for proof, just look towards The Big Bang Theory.
On a list of the "world's highest paid actors" released by Forbes earlier this year, the show's four male stars - Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Kunal Nayyar and Simon Helberg - took out the top four spots, with "Friends-like" salaries ranging from $US22 million to $US25.5 million. The cast - including star Kaley Cuoco - have famously been earning $US1 million ($1.35 million) per episode since 2014.
The "top-tier" cast members of Game Of Thrones, meanwhile - that's Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau - also signed a contract this year that will see their salaries for the show's concluding seventh and eighth seasons jump to over $US500,000 ($677,000) per episode.