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For a guy who was the first to be paid $20 million per picture, Jim Carrey is now being talked about behind his back, the only way it’s done in Hollywood, as being repped by some pretty dumb agents at Creative Artists. If gossip is to be believed, this would be the first dumb thing CAA ever did.

One thing that’s never done is taking salary from the back — always take the money up front. But the deal CAA made with Warner Brothers for Carrey’s new picture, Yes Man, calls for no upfront cash (What???) and no percentage of the gross (What???)

The deal is for Carrey to get a cash-break on 36.2 percent of the back end, the amount the studio keeps after production and advertising costs.

Deadline Hollywood blogger, Nikki Finke, writes of an “unnamed talent manager” as saying “Let me put it this way: If his reps were a hospital, they would be shut down for malpractice. This is a new kind of Hollywood stupid.”

Gossip notwithstanding, Carrey and CAA have done just fine so far and this deal, no matter what the locals are saying, may end up to be the best deal in town.

Perhaps Finke’s “unnamed talent manager” is the same one who advised George Raft to turn down the part of Rick in Casablanca.