Dan Marino Cost Himself Millions From Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

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SOURCE - Dan Marino cost himself a small fortune when he made the decision to appear in the classic Jim Carrey comedy, “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.” 

The 62-year-old legendary former Dolphins quarterback appeared on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Wednesday, and McAfee asked Marino about a rumor that he opted to take a flat appearance fee for acting in the film as opposed to an unspecified gross percentage of the film.

“That’s very accurate,” Marino confirmed.

Dan Marino is a pretty blessed guy. Has amazing athletic ability, handsome guy and pretty fucking rich. But I guess you can't actually have it all. Well, we knew that already because of lack of a Super Bowl ring. But you get my overall point.

Marino taking a flat rate to do Ace Ventura instead of taking the points shows you how little confidence he had in it being a hit. I can't entirely blame him. It seems hard to believe now but hopes were not high for Ace Ventura being a big movie before it came out. People knew Jim Carrey from In Living Color but he had never been top billed before. 

Warner Bros. dumped it to release in the box office graveyard that typically is the first week of February. That weekend, it opened at number one and it felt like everyone was talking about it. I was 14 at the time and the ideal audience but I remember overhearing people talking about it a restaurant I went to and then again at the mall that same day. Jim Carrey became a movie star literally over the course of a single weekend. That same year, he would put out The Mask and Dumb and Dumber. 1994 might be the greatest year for any comedic movie star ever.

So how much did Dan Marino lose? Some points are tied to how profitable a movie is. You hear of some movie studios cooking books in a clever way and make even a successful movie look like a bomb to avoid paying points. That would be especially tough to do with a movie that had a $15 million budget that made over $72 million just domestically. 

This is pretty wild guesswork but let's say the movie made $50 million profit and Marino's points were tied to that. If had a couple points, that's a million bucks. I'd say that's the absolute least amount of money he would have made. If the points were tied to video rentals, cable money and anything else, you're looking at closer to $10 million. This is a very different situation but Jack Nicholson made $90 million just off points for the 1989 Batman!

I like that Marino can laugh about it now. Why wouldn't he? He made $51 million just from his Dolphins contracts and he seems to be doing great. He can even say he was in a movie that helped launch Jim Carrey's movie career and is still quoted today. I guess some people do get everything.

Except for that Super Bowl ring.