Tom Selleck Reveals ‘Blue Bloods’ Pay Cuts Meant to Save the Show
What To Know
- Tom Selleck opens up about the Blue Bloods cast taking significant pay cuts in Season 14 to help save the show.
- CBS still canceled it after 14 seasons despite strong ratings and cast commitment.
- Selleck expresses his continued frustration over the cancellation.
Tom Selleck is speaking out again about the “frustrating” Blue Bloods cancellation, this time highlighting the fact that he and his costars took big pay cuts for Season 14 to help alleviate costs, a move they were willing to make again to keep the show running. However, CBS still ended the series after 14 seasons. Now, the Reagan family lives on in Boston Blue, a spinoff for which the stars are hoping to recruit Selleck as a guest star.
Selleck discussed Blue Bloods‘ cancellation in an interview with Ted Danson on his podcast called Where Everybody Knows Your Name.
“Blue Bloods was a labor of love… I think for everybody,” Selleck told Danson. He starred in the CBS family drama alongside Donnie Wahlberg. Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes, Len Cariou, and more, and everyone was committed to returning for another season, according to Selleck.
“The real truth to that is, in the last year of [Blue Bloods], at our last family dinner, everybody wanted to come back. We’d already taken a 25 percent cut in salary,” Selleck shared with Danson. “We’d already done all sorts of things to keep the show going.”
CBS
“It was very frustrating because… out of the top 100 shows on broadcast television, Blue Bloods was number six in our fifteenth year,” Selleck continued. “Nobody wanted to leave. Everybody was gonna stay on. That’s hard to get. It may be some kind of record to have the same cast intact for that length of time. Usually, if it wasn’t a family, it would be different, but you couldn’t very well replace Jamie or Danny or anybody with another actor.”
According to Selleck, they all wanted to continue working on Blue Bloods because they all still enjoyed working together; they didn’t want to give that up.
“Maybe people don’t realize, but a lot of shows become miserable to work on,” Selleck admitted. “You get a lot of egos and ‘I’m not coming out of my dressing room until he’s coming out’… and it’s miserable. Blue Bloods was never that.”
Wahlberg now stars in the Blue Bloods spinoff Boston Blue with Sonequa Martin-Green. The first season featured guest-star appearances from Marisa Ramirez, Moynahan, Cariou, and Will Hochman, and Martin-Green says they’re eager to have Selleck join them if and when he’s ready.
“We’ve been talking about Mr. Selleck for a long time,” Martin-Green told Woman’s World. “He is always getting asked, and as Donnie always says, the door’s open. We would love to have him and we will make sure the story is just right because Tom is so adamant about the story, as he should be and as we all should be. I think it would be great if we can have him, and I’m excited for whatever story it ends up being if he does come.”
Boston Blue, Season 2 Premiere, Friday, October 9, 10/9c, CBS
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C
Shame on CBS! We all miss Blue Bloods!!!!
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A
This should surprise no one at the dishonor and betrayal from the CBS crowd. No loyalty even for the top stars who fed their coffers for years. They lost me as a viewer . Loyalty is a 2 way street.
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M
Boston blue is still like BLUE BLOODS so why cancel it? Boston blue still does episodes off site, have those so called Sunday dinners that Danny shows up too. Not a family member.
If I was Tom Selleck I WOULD NOT give that other show any credit to boost their ratings. Should have never cancelled BLUE BLOODS.
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G
Because Tom Selleck isn’t a ‘Hollywood’ liberal of course his very popular family show was cancelled.
Boston Blue filmed in Canada ticks all the politically correct boxes and in my opinion despite a good cast it falls way short of Blue Bloods a FAMILY show everyone could watch having to explain uncomfortable situations. I gave it a try but trying to follow the dynamics was too much bs.
I hope he never appears on it as it’s an insult to the original program.
I’d love to see more Jesse Stone movies, that would be great!
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