This Is How Much Bill Cosby Might Pocket Too Keep His Name Off the ‘Different World’ Reboot
When A Different World premiered in 1987, comedian Bill Cosby was at the height of his showbiz powers. The Cosby Show was “TV’s biggest hit in the 1980s,” according to TV Guide, and “almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC's ratings fortunes.” If Cosby told NBC he wanted to do a live-action Mushmouth series based on the old Fat Albert cartoons, the network would have gladly written him a check.
But Cosby chose to focus on TV daughter Denise instead, inventing a new sitcom set at fictional HBCU Hillman College. In A Different World’s first season, it ranked as America’s second-favorite show, ranking behind only its sitcom parent. The show remained a top-five hit for its first four seasons before eventually running out of gas.
That success explains why Netflix just greenlit a reboot of A Different World. The series will focus on Dwayne and Whitley’s daughter, now a student at Hillman herself. Several of the original creators from the 1980s are back, including executive producers Debbie Allen, Tom Werner, Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Bythewood.
Er, notice a name missing from that list? There’s no Bill Cosby, even though he had several credits on the original, including “Created By” and even “Theme Music Composer.” Cosby’s absence is no surprise. Nobody wants to involve a guy who served time for sex crimes, even when his conviction was later overturned for “violations of his due process rights”. If A Different World has to come back, at least Cosby won’t profit from it.
Right?
It turns out that the Netflix reboot might be pretty lucrative for the disgraced comic, according to Puck’s Kim Masters. Even though sources at the streamer say A Different World has no involvement from Cosby, that doesn’t mean he’s not getting a check. Or two.
First, Masters cites a source “with knowledge of the situation” who says Cosby will indeed get paid, as required by his original contract. As the show’s creator with massive clout when the deal was made, it makes sense that he’d own at least part of the IP.
But wait, there’s more. The source claims Cosby is getting paid a second time — this time to keep his name off the show. Erasing the comic’s “created by” credit apparently comes at a cost.
How much is that price tag? Masters asked a veteran network executive to guess. “Given that it’s Netflix and he would be getting both an E.P. credit and extra for agreeing to keep his name off, I’d say the range is $75,000 to $100,000 per episode,” he said. Given Netflix’s ten-episode commitment, that means Carsey-Warner may funnel up to a million bucks to Cosby to sit back and pretend he had nothing to do with the show.
Given that the number of civil lawsuits women have filed against Cosby is in the double-digits, the extra cash will come in handy.