Knowing nothing at all about the industry from an insider perspective, my outsider surmise is maybe a lesser star in this situation would be.
But Scarlett Johansson is the highest grossing female 'bankable'[0] star and as such even if Disney might not want to work with her, I doubt she will ever be wanting for work.
>Expect her ROI to jump after the box-office takes of "Black Widow" are tallied.
ope.
I think the dispute over compensation is likely fair, and will be settled out of court.
The problem is if Disney blacklists her from its main franchises, Star Wars and Marvel and Pixar/Disney animation films, that is more than half of the box office these days.
The box office is I think 50% super hero films now.
"PoCs" is for people of color, all those identifying as non-white. It's not racist to use these terms, it's racist for you to denigrate them as "boiling people down". Thinking these terms are racist is a property of whiteness. I highly suggest that you read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Fragility by Robin DiAngelo so you can have some introspec into your white fragility. I'm being sincere.
This assault at our language is so counter-productive. If you indeed want races to coexist cordially, spend your energy on something that actually helps their relations. You are literally making people who were not racist before to resent the other races.
That's not an IETF standard, that's a draft. Anyone can publish an Internet draft. They do not necessarily reflect the position of the IETF. Furthermore, this draft is expired and was not adopted as a standard.
Nothing about the term "blacklist" or the related term "blackball" have roots in racism. They idea of dark and light being evil and good is biblical and speak to a belief in an afterlife. Making something racist because it's adjacent to something else is searching for racism. I'm sure a lot of things can be racist, if you want them to be. Let's keep the stones we cast aimed in the right direction.
Like master-slave, the metaphorical use of white-black to connote good-evil is oppressive.
There is even a name for this pervasive language pitfall: the association of white with good and black with evil is known as the “bad is black effect” [Grewal].
Indeed, there is an entire book on the subject, written by renowned authority on race, Franz Fanon. In his book “Black Skin, White Masks,” Fanon makes several persuasive arguments that standard language encodes subconscious in-group, out-group preferences
> Ms. Johansson said in the suit that her agreement with Disney’s Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release, and her salary was based in large part on the box-office performance of the film.
Meanwhile, the film was released to stream simultaneously with the box office release. Ouch.
Sounds like she had people negotiating for her who failed to recognize the full weight of the pandemic's lasting repercussions. Who knows? They may have even negotiated this deal before the severity of the pandemic was plain? Whatever the case may be, it's a teachable moment. You almost have to have "continuous wargaming" to sort out ongoing effects the pandemic may have on your business.
From the article:
> In a March 2019 email included in the suit, Marvel Chief Counsel Dave Galluzzi said the release would be according to a traditional theatrical model, adding, “We understand that should the plan change, we would need to discuss this with you and come to an understanding as the deal is based on a series of (very large) box office bonuses.”
doesn't sound like they negotiated this 2 months ago...
Disney lied about it. They said they would renegotiate with her if plans changed about theatrical release, and then when plans changed, they didn’t renegotiate. (The contract was signed WELL before the pandemic.)
I would bet Scarlett Johansson's net worth that her contract included an "entire agreement" clause.
That said, I hope she gets what is fair. The only reason actors / directors get box office gross deals is that studios have absolutely mastered the art of defrauding everyone on net deals and now with streaming it's even worse:
- Now 100% of the release marketing (which reduces net profit) pushes the streaming service as an option next to theaters
- Streaming service is massive LTV & branding value that benefits only Disney
The shooting of the movie ended months before the pandemic hit, and the negotiations regarding her salary had obviously been done before the shooting had even started.
The talks for this began in 2017, so undoubtedly it was negotiated at that time before any real work on the film was done.
So very likely, Disney is in the wrong here but I suppose it's for the courts to assess such a thing, or for Disney to find a way to make the issue go away
The article makes it sound as if her camp became concerned about streaming in 2019, so pre-pandemic and presumably post original contract. You'd need to be a lawyer and read the actual contract to see if there were specific representations about box office and streaming. One would think there were but Disney+ didn't even launch until 2019 so maybe that's what kicked off the concerns.
These negotiation most likely precede the pandemic, considering the original planned release for May 2020. Regardless though, a deal was struck and no pandemic or other unforeseen circumstances will change that contract unless it is renegotiated in mutual agreement.
Disney may argue why it deviated from their contractual obligations, and some of that might sound reasonable in light of the pandemic reality. But that doesn't change that they still violated their contract.
Doing business is a lot of taking (calculated) risks and trying to make a profit that way. Contracts exist to protect the interests of those involved. Of course Disney couldn't foresee the pandemic, but they still made a calculated risk by locking something down in a contract. From that moment on, they were stuck to their deal. If reality made that a tough pill to swallow, tough luck. That's the risk of doing business.
> In a March 2019 email included in the suit, Marvel Chief Counsel Dave Galluzzi said the release would be according to a traditional theatrical model, adding, “We understand that should the plan change, we would need to discuss this with you and come to an understanding as the deal is based on a series of (very large) box office bonuses.”
UPDATE: just realized that she's suing Disney and this quote is from a Marvel exec. Still bad, but it would be much worse if it had been a Disney exec.
Because it's not a contract. If emails were contracts, every email that comes later would supersede it. You can't run things that way. If you agree to it, put it in a contract. But if you wanted to allow emails as contracts, then the last email on a subject would always be the final contract for instance. It would be too unfair and difficult to sort out.
For instance, was the highlighted email the last email on the subject? If not, do those subsequent emails also represent contracts? What was in the last email? The game could go on and on. Whereas with a properly executed contract, everyone knows what everyone signed.
Now it can influence legal proceedings, but only insofar as it illustrates where a negotiation was going. And again, subsequent emails would point to where those negotiations landed in the end.
In some jurisdictions, courts use a "four corners of the document" test, and nothing outside of the document can be used to interpret the meaning of the contract.
Other jurisdictions allow extrinsic evidence (like this email) to help interpret the language of the contract. We would need to know what the governing jurisdiction is for this contract in order to know how much an outside email would matter in court.
But in the court of public opinion (which matters somewhat for famous people and well-known companies), these legal technicalities won't matter. The headline will be that a Marvel exec said that they would need to revisit the compensation if they didn't do a standard theatrical release.
"said" referring to something written in this case, in an email. It's not hearsay (if that's what you're implying) but a statement by someone with some degree of authority/responsibility.
This can actually become important in legal proceedings. It's one reason to be careful with what people say in meetings or write in communications with customers or others, as it can become legally binding if they're perceived to have sufficient authority/responsibility to back the statement.
I didn't say naked promises, where I've seen this have a real world consequence was when the speaker seemed to have authority they did not, or made a statement that conveyed an intent they did not mean. Like "We're ready to start on the project" being taken by a contractor to mean, "Get dev work started today" and then billing the work when the speaker wasn't actually authorizing the start at that time. It's about whether there's a potential good faith misunderstanding of the statement. The contractor didn't take the statement and run with it to bill hours they shouldn't have billed, they legitimately took the statement to be the go ahead to get started and billed accordingly.
But that doesn't make for a good contractor now, does it? If they're so naive to run after every stick thrown at them and lose on that, no real court should help them.
That is the whole reason for the "invention" of contracts, where everything is finalized, official, set in stone, and unbreakable.
Problem with Scarlet is that in no way she could have foreseen 2020 and didn't think any of it. Now that stuff happened, she's just angry at her misfortune and is reaching for straws. It's unfortunate.
> But for Disney, “Black Widow” has been seen as a success, given that the company also released the picture on its Disney+ streaming service for a $30 surcharge. Disney says the movie generated more than $60 million in digital sales this way, reflecting viewership of at least two million households over the opening weekend.
Why would streamers pay $30 for premiere access, when you can go to theaters (pre-covid) for ~$12 with a better experience?
Disney: Hype, take advantage of brand loyalty to make a quick buck, no substance
> Why would streamers pay $30 for premiere access, when you can go to theaters (pre-covid) for ~$12 with a better experience?
$30 for the household, a one-time cost. For one person it's a no-brainer, theater is cheaper unless it's a long drive away. With 2 people it's probably cheaper to go to the theater depending on distance and whether you get concessions. With 3 it's break even depending on theater costs in your area and assuming you don't get concessions. With 4 or more, the $30 price is definitely better outside of a few lower cost of living areas (if they even have a theater nearby). And you can rewatch it throughout that premier access period. Though that's less applicable to Black Widow, versus movies aimed more at small kids.
Also a good reason to prefer streaming. My wife and I don't have kids (yet), but fortunately we also like different movies so when the time comes we'll probably trade off kid duties so the other can go see a movie and get away for a bit (when we go to theaters now, half the time we're not seeing the same movie anyways).
This makes sense. A lot of stars expect a cut of box office revenues and negotiate that in. But the negotiations happened probably prior to the pandemic and the new situation probably was unthinkable.
Also the box office in general has been destroyed recently because of the pandemic. What would have likely been $+150M opening weekends and close to $1B totals revenue (or even more) are reduced to fractions of that.
EDIT: Even worse, it was actually to be released in May 2020, thus the negotiations for salary were likely done in 2017/2018 or possibly earlier. Disney+ wasn't even announced back then.
And there is nobody in Hollywood that wouldn't have anticipated that. Disney is the Microsoft of the movie world - an extremely aggressive company with a track record of dominating or being a major player in any market it chooses to compete in.
Of course, no one commenting here, especially me, knows. Obviously, they knew about streaming when negotiating the contract and may have even anticipated it might be big.
But it's at least possible that they did not anticipate that Disney might release a film in one of their tentpole franchises at the same time as in theaters. Or, more likely, the tried to get Disney to commit to a specific box office exclusivity window and Disney refused and/or offered something different in exchange which, in the absence of a pandemic, looked better by comparison.
I used to work in the movie industry and (other than at the very bottom quasi-amateur indie film level) most people in the industry understand this stuff really well. There are two daily newspapers that just serve the film and TV industry and 75% of the content is about who is making or breaking deals and what the legal and economic implications are. Don't forget that the industry wen through this cycle many times already, from verticals (studios owning theater chains), to TV, to home video, to DVD, to streaming etc. etc.
Decisions and litigation like this are often not based on the merits at all. They're poker games in which the bets are the amount of litigation expenses people are willing to bear. Dis ney might look at this and think 'Scarlett Johanssen could easily win this case, but she's probably not willing to spend more than $10 million on legal fees over a period longer than 5 years. Maybe it's worth putting in $20 million on legal fees at our end because we stand to gain $1 billion over the same period by having a stronger bargaining position in other negotiations.'
Scarlett Johansson could walk out of any future business with Disney and still be a big star and make money with other studios. She has legions of fans that will keep her a star for as long as she wants to keep acting. But will it hurt Disney to make an enemy of her? Probably not at all. However, caving in a contract dispute makes them look less powerful in all future negotiations.
Contrary to the message their movies convey to the public, within the industry Disney much prefers to be feared rather than loved.
only in 2019 the Netflix contract ran out making it possible for them to use the full Disney catalogue while reducing access for Netflix. Thus creating a competitive product. Only in 2020 they launched in Europe.
> But the negotiations happened probably prior to the pandemic and the new situation probably was unthinkable.
Apparently Warner dealt with this unexpected issue differently:
> WarnerMedia chose to renegotiate many of its talent contracts that, like Ms. Johansson’s deal with Marvel, were tied to box-office performance. Warner Bros. paid more than $200 million to talent as part of the amended agreements.
Not hard at all, actually. All stars have very savvy agents and lawyers, and the movie industry has always been a cutthroat business. Don't let the glitz and glamor blind you to the fact that it is an industry which selects for people who work very long hours and drive hard bargains, at every level.
Every professional contract I've ever seen contemplates expansion into future media and markets; it's a technology driven business that has to follow customers to where they are going, and industry lawyers are fully aware that if studios or production companies had the option, most of them would happily relocate to the Moon or Mars to avoid paying out, while maintaining an office on earth to litigate their own copyright interests.
> Wasn't it Lucas or someone who was famous for negotiating ongoing rights / IP ownership, when the studio (in retrospect) drastically undervalued them?
IIRC, it was merchandising rights. Sales of the Star Wars action figures were huge, and my understanding kind of unprecedented.
> All stars have very savvy agents and lawyers...it is an industry which selects for people who work very long hours and drive hard bargains, at every level.
When I was in law school at UCLA, I considered going into entertainment law. I attended a presentation by a famous entertainment lawyer who said that the lawyers in show business are not actually the most talented — unlike other industries, the big players don't hire primarily from Harvard, Yale, etc.
Instead, the halls of Sony Pictures or Fox are lined with graduates from second- and third-tier law schools who had a foot in the door because of a family connection.
The reason he gave for this is that entertainment law is not as complex as other areas of law, so the basic contract work can be done by a not-stellar lawyer. This was a 15 years ago, and perhaps times have changed. But I'm sure that family/industry connections are still an important part of getting these jobs.
Definitely true. And showbiz negotiation is very much about strategy and chutzpah rather than pure legal acuity - I think the smartest minds go into business law or practice in fields like insurance.
But I do think entertainment lawyers are still very good at what they do. If you look at a popular reference like Mark Litwak's Dealmaking in the Film and Television Industry there's a heavy emphasis on taking the longest possible view because big openings and box office receipts are only tiny part of the overall revenue stream, and the real money is in syndication, foreign sales, merchandise etc. etc.
Feels like when Microsoft licensed Mosaic from Spyglass to become Internet Explorer, and a chunk of the compensation was tied to a fraction of revenue from Internet Explorer. Of course Microsoft gave IE away as part of Windows so IE never had any revenue associated directly with it.
Eventually MS did settle a lawsuit brought by Spyglass for $8 million to make the issue go away.
That's a great parallel. Most of Disney's profit on this movie is gonna end up coming in the form of Disney+ subscriptions, which she won't be getting any cut of. And unlike the Spyglass case, her original contract explicitly anticipated this -- Disney just ignored it and now a lawsuit is the only way to settle it.
> The decision to put the movie on Disney+ is projected to cost Ms. Johansson more than $50 million, a person familiar with details of her contract claimed.
Granted, those financial estimates likely assume the movie had premiered as planned without a worldwide pandemic.
Aside from the issue of box-office split I imagine like there are a lot of other material ways actors lose out when this happens.
A studio may look at a 50M ad buy and think that, because it would only net 60M in ticket sales tops, its not worth the risk. However, from the POV of the actor part of the reason they appeared in a big budget movie was to get lots of screentime on tv/ads beforehand to boost their profile.
This reminds me of Robin Williams. Disney did roughly the same thing to him. He did Aladdin (highest-grossing of 1992) with the proviso that Disney couldn't sell merchandise. They did. He didn't sue but he refused to work with Disney again and created quite a storm in Hollywood. Disney eventually publicly apologized (but only after Katzenberg left).
92 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadBut Scarlett Johansson is the highest grossing female 'bankable'[0] star and as such even if Disney might not want to work with her, I doubt she will ever be wanting for work.
>Expect her ROI to jump after the box-office takes of "Black Widow" are tallied.
ope.
I think the dispute over compensation is likely fair, and will be settled out of court.
[0]https://www.workandmoney.com/s/most-bankable-movie-actresses...
The box office is I think 50% super hero films now.
That said I think they won't...
"Blocklist" and "denylist" are better terms that are neutral and more descriptive.
"PoCs" is for people of color, all those identifying as non-white. It's not racist to use these terms, it's racist for you to denigrate them as "boiling people down". Thinking these terms are racist is a property of whiteness. I highly suggest that you read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Fragility by Robin DiAngelo so you can have some introspec into your white fragility. I'm being sincere.
[0] https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-knodel-terminology-00.html
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-wkumari-not-a-dr...
[0] https://itsfoss.com/linux-kernel-inclusive-code/
[1] https://bugs.python.org/issue34605
There is even a name for this pervasive language pitfall: the association of white with good and black with evil is known as the “bad is black effect” [Grewal].
Indeed, there is an entire book on the subject, written by renowned authority on race, Franz Fanon. In his book “Black Skin, White Masks,” Fanon makes several persuasive arguments that standard language encodes subconscious in-group, out-group preferences
Many of the Avengers are moving on to let others take over.
She may not do a Marvel Studios project again, but her character's arc is complete now so there's not much of a reason to have her anyway.
Meanwhile, the film was released to stream simultaneously with the box office release. Ouch.
doesn't sound like they negotiated this 2 months ago...
That said, I hope she gets what is fair. The only reason actors / directors get box office gross deals is that studios have absolutely mastered the art of defrauding everyone on net deals and now with streaming it's even worse:
- Now 100% of the release marketing (which reduces net profit) pushes the streaming service as an option next to theaters
- Streaming service is massive LTV & branding value that benefits only Disney
The pandemic would still affect her earnings, but that's beyond the point - the release shouldn't have happened on stream.
So it's Disney who should have gone to her and say, maybe let's give you a cut of the streaming and we will release this simultaneously.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Widow_(2021_film)
The talks for this began in 2017, so undoubtedly it was negotiated at that time before any real work on the film was done.
So very likely, Disney is in the wrong here but I suppose it's for the courts to assess such a thing, or for Disney to find a way to make the issue go away
Disney may argue why it deviated from their contractual obligations, and some of that might sound reasonable in light of the pandemic reality. But that doesn't change that they still violated their contract.
Doing business is a lot of taking (calculated) risks and trying to make a profit that way. Contracts exist to protect the interests of those involved. Of course Disney couldn't foresee the pandemic, but they still made a calculated risk by locking something down in a contract. From that moment on, they were stuck to their deal. If reality made that a tough pill to swallow, tough luck. That's the risk of doing business.
> In a March 2019 email included in the suit, Marvel Chief Counsel Dave Galluzzi said the release would be according to a traditional theatrical model, adding, “We understand that should the plan change, we would need to discuss this with you and come to an understanding as the deal is based on a series of (very large) box office bonuses.”
UPDATE: just realized that she's suing Disney and this quote is from a Marvel exec. Still bad, but it would be much worse if it had been a Disney exec.
Movie was bad nevertheless.
For instance, was the highlighted email the last email on the subject? If not, do those subsequent emails also represent contracts? What was in the last email? The game could go on and on. Whereas with a properly executed contract, everyone knows what everyone signed.
Now it can influence legal proceedings, but only insofar as it illustrates where a negotiation was going. And again, subsequent emails would point to where those negotiations landed in the end.
Other jurisdictions allow extrinsic evidence (like this email) to help interpret the language of the contract. We would need to know what the governing jurisdiction is for this contract in order to know how much an outside email would matter in court.
But in the court of public opinion (which matters somewhat for famous people and well-known companies), these legal technicalities won't matter. The headline will be that a Marvel exec said that they would need to revisit the compensation if they didn't do a standard theatrical release.
This can actually become important in legal proceedings. It's one reason to be careful with what people say in meetings or write in communications with customers or others, as it can become legally binding if they're perceived to have sufficient authority/responsibility to back the statement.
That is the whole reason for the "invention" of contracts, where everything is finalized, official, set in stone, and unbreakable.
Problem with Scarlet is that in no way she could have foreseen 2020 and didn't think any of it. Now that stuff happened, she's just angry at her misfortune and is reaching for straws. It's unfortunate.
Someone had an unfortunate day when that email surfaced in court filings.
Why would streamers pay $30 for premiere access, when you can go to theaters (pre-covid) for ~$12 with a better experience?
Disney: Hype, take advantage of brand loyalty to make a quick buck, no substance
https://www.wsj.com/articles/black-widow-enters-a-gray-area-...
$30 for the household, a one-time cost. For one person it's a no-brainer, theater is cheaper unless it's a long drive away. With 2 people it's probably cheaper to go to the theater depending on distance and whether you get concessions. With 3 it's break even depending on theater costs in your area and assuming you don't get concessions. With 4 or more, the $30 price is definitely better outside of a few lower cost of living areas (if they even have a theater nearby). And you can rewatch it throughout that premier access period. Though that's less applicable to Black Widow, versus movies aimed more at small kids.
Also the box office in general has been destroyed recently because of the pandemic. What would have likely been $+150M opening weekends and close to $1B totals revenue (or even more) are reduced to fractions of that.
EDIT: Even worse, it was actually to be released in May 2020, thus the negotiations for salary were likely done in 2017/2018 or possibly earlier. Disney+ wasn't even announced back then.
But it's at least possible that they did not anticipate that Disney might release a film in one of their tentpole franchises at the same time as in theaters. Or, more likely, the tried to get Disney to commit to a specific box office exclusivity window and Disney refused and/or offered something different in exchange which, in the absence of a pandemic, looked better by comparison.
Decisions and litigation like this are often not based on the merits at all. They're poker games in which the bets are the amount of litigation expenses people are willing to bear. Dis ney might look at this and think 'Scarlett Johanssen could easily win this case, but she's probably not willing to spend more than $10 million on legal fees over a period longer than 5 years. Maybe it's worth putting in $20 million on legal fees at our end because we stand to gain $1 billion over the same period by having a stronger bargaining position in other negotiations.'
Scarlett Johansson could walk out of any future business with Disney and still be a big star and make money with other studios. She has legions of fans that will keep her a star for as long as she wants to keep acting. But will it hurt Disney to make an enemy of her? Probably not at all. However, caving in a contract dispute makes them look less powerful in all future negotiations.
Contrary to the message their movies convey to the public, within the industry Disney much prefers to be feared rather than loved.
Apparently Warner dealt with this unexpected issue differently:
> WarnerMedia chose to renegotiate many of its talent contracts that, like Ms. Johansson’s deal with Marvel, were tied to box-office performance. Warner Bros. paid more than $200 million to talent as part of the amended agreements.
Every professional contract I've ever seen contemplates expansion into future media and markets; it's a technology driven business that has to follow customers to where they are going, and industry lawyers are fully aware that if studios or production companies had the option, most of them would happily relocate to the Moon or Mars to avoid paying out, while maintaining an office on earth to litigate their own copyright interests.
edit: I heared the above several times over the years, but it appears it may not be true:
https://www.businessinsider.com/sylvester-stallone-on-never-...
IIRC, it was merchandising rights. Sales of the Star Wars action figures were huge, and my understanding kind of unprecedented.
When I was in law school at UCLA, I considered going into entertainment law. I attended a presentation by a famous entertainment lawyer who said that the lawyers in show business are not actually the most talented — unlike other industries, the big players don't hire primarily from Harvard, Yale, etc.
Instead, the halls of Sony Pictures or Fox are lined with graduates from second- and third-tier law schools who had a foot in the door because of a family connection.
The reason he gave for this is that entertainment law is not as complex as other areas of law, so the basic contract work can be done by a not-stellar lawyer. This was a 15 years ago, and perhaps times have changed. But I'm sure that family/industry connections are still an important part of getting these jobs.
But I do think entertainment lawyers are still very good at what they do. If you look at a popular reference like Mark Litwak's Dealmaking in the Film and Television Industry there's a heavy emphasis on taking the longest possible view because big openings and box office receipts are only tiny part of the overall revenue stream, and the real money is in syndication, foreign sales, merchandise etc. etc.
Eventually MS did settle a lawsuit brought by Spyglass for $8 million to make the issue go away.
Granted, those financial estimates likely assume the movie had premiered as planned without a worldwide pandemic.
Legal accounting is fun.
A studio may look at a 50M ad buy and think that, because it would only net 60M in ticket sales tops, its not worth the risk. However, from the POV of the actor part of the reason they appeared in a big budget movie was to get lots of screentime on tv/ads beforehand to boost their profile.
https://insidethemagic.net/2021/05/robin-williams-refused-di...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williams