James McAvoy reveals the movie that's still earning him 'consistent' residuals years later

James McAvoy has revealed which film is still earning him regular cash even 10 years after its release.

Now, you may know McAvoy best for his plethora of hair-raising roles as an actor, but he's since donned the cap of director too.

Last week, McAvoy's directorial debut California Schemin' was released in the US, following an initial release in the UK in April earlier this year.

The biographical musical film stars Samuel Bottomley and Séamus McLean Ross as Scottish faux-American rap duo Silibil N'Brains, Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, based on Bain's memoir.

And the release is a hit, certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a tomatometer score of 93 per cent.

Alas, directors don't get paid more for a good tomatometer score, McAvoy joking in an interview with Josh Horowitz on his Happy, Sad, Confused podcast that he doesn't 'get paid $2.50 for being a director' and so will 'probably' need to combine his passions for directing with his acting work.

And McAvoy didn't stop there, the Marvel star and Narnia OG going on to share a further insight into how he's paid for the multitude of roles he's taken on.

Did someone say 'consistent' residual check? (Universal Pictures)

Revealing whether he gets his income from when it comes to previous roles, McAvoy said: "You've always got a good back end, and there's like some in your contract you get back end here and back end there. I very rarely see anything from anything.

"You get the odd check for a couple of hundred quid here, or sometimes you get check for like 25 cents and all that, and you're like, it literally costs more to post this than it did for me to check it, cash it.

"The only one that really consistently pays me is Split."

Psychological thriller Split was released in 2016. Written, directed, and produced by M. night Shyamalan, it stars McAvoy alongside Anya Taylor-Joy and Betty Buckley. It's the second installment in the Unbreakable trilogy.

And the first residual check McAvoy received for the film came in ridiculously quickly.

McAvoy's latest release is California Schemin' which he directed (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

McAvoy explained it's because they made the film for 'like six million or something like that' and then spent around '$30 million advertising it' to then make $40 million in the film's first weekend, straight away in profit.

"So, our first residual cheque came at the end of the first weekend. it was bonkers."

Indeed, McAvoy not far off, the film is reported by Box Office Mojo of being made on a budget of $9 million, making a whopping $40,010,975 across 3,038 theaters on opening weekend across just the US and Canada and went on to gross $278,454,358 worldwide.

The film became a massive hit for Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions, alongside all those involved, including McAvoy.

Well, let's hope McAvoy's directorial endeavours follow suit too then eh?