John Carpenter's 1978 classic Halloween left a gigantic imprint on popular culture, but at the time, nobody involved knew they were giving birth to a franchise as unstoppable as Michael Myers himself. Originally titled The Babysitter Murders, the film was meant to launch the (now defunct) Compass International Pictures, and produced on a shoestring budget of $320,000. It went on to become the highest-grossing independent feature ever made at the time, and launched the careers of Carpenter and lead Jamie Lee Curtis — but the entire cast and crew worked for peanuts.
Donald Pleasance, who portrayed psychiatrist and prophet of doom Sam Loomis, was the production's highest-paid actor due to his name recognition. He was paid $20,000, while Carpenter took $10,000 and a percentage of the profits. For her breakout starring role, Curtis was only paid $8,000 — but even that looked like big money next to the payday of stuntman Nick Castle, Carpenter's buddy and the man behind Myers' mask. Castle was paid the princely sum of $25 a day for his role in a film that would go on to gross $55 million, but he wasn't too busted up about it, since it opened up opportunities for him to direct his own films. As for Curtis, she summed up her position nicely: "Halloween gave everyone involved with it a career. I'd say that's good enough."
