“The producers of the forthcoming movie 3003 will be most likely to maximize their profits if they are willing to pay Robin Good several million dollars to star in it—even though that amount is far more than any other person involved with the movie will make. After all, Robin has in the past been paid a similar amount to work in several films that were very financially successful.”
Argument claims that producers of a certain movie can maximize their profits by paying a significant amount of money to one specific actor. The Judgement is extremely unfounded since it fails to provide enough evidence that Robin Good possesses the ability to make a movie famous and thus profitable. Fact provided for the support of that conclusion can easily be a causation-correlation error. Even if this case stands, we are provided with no evidence that this financial decision is justifiable for this concrete movie since we know nothing about its budget and priorities. After all, disproportional pay can cause protests in cast and end up jeopardizing movie at once.
First, the core problem of this argument is right away apparent. We have no evidence that Robin Good is the actor who can significantly increase movie profit. Fact that an actor has been paid a significant sum in other popular, hence high budget movies can easily be a simple correlation and we have no evidence to think of a causation. Sometimes movie producers manage to create some kind of hype before even a movie is being directed, accumulating huge budget and guaranteeing profitability upfront. It's logical to assume that most actors in such cases are getting paid appealing amounts, since everyone knows the scale of the project they are participating in. But we can't necessarily assume that actors defined the success of the movie. Reasons can be a script, director popularity or other unrelated circumstances.
Secondly, even if Robin Good possesses such capability claimed by argument, we have no reason to believe that decision is justifiable in this case. Argument fails to address if extra revenue added by this specific actor makes sense in terms of the overall budget. Nowadays, budget almost certainly dictates movie profitability, because quality requires high numbers. If other actors are low-paid we have reason to believe this project is not high budget. Adding one popular actor might not change its fate and end up causing a huge financial failure.
Lastly, disproportionate distribution of compensations might end up jeopardizing the project. Nowadays, labor rights are advocated enough this case to cause significant protest. A lot of such cases even end up in court for understandable reasons. Even if Robin Good is that good, such a distribution of wages can be hardly justifiable.
In conclusion, the argument suffers from unfounded assumptions and fails to provide relevant evidence. We have no reason to believe robin good can be of such a good use for this project. Provided plan can not only have no positive effect but jeopardize the whole project, since the proposed salary distribution is extremely unjust and doesn't make any sense in the whole picture.