Scarlet Johannson Sues Disney

(I figured this was big enough news to get its own thread)

Scarlet Johannson suing Disney over the simultaneous theater / streaming release.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/scarle...ver-black-widow-streaming-release-11627579278

Ooopsie!

Once upon a time...

Disney will settle out of court, and henceforth all new entertainment contracts will have provisions about simultaneous release in multiple formats.

The End.

/thread

Probably.

I had no idea some of the Marvel stars made that kind of money, wow

I guess she finally decided to burn that bridge, since it's unlikely Black Widow will be appearing in any more MCU stuff.

Who needs Disney when she's got Colin Jost?

I could actually see either side somehow being averse to settle.

If ScarJo legitimately thinks that she should get $50 million or more because that's what the Disney+ release supposedly cost her, I would tend to think that Disney would offer anything close to that. First of all, that seems like a crazy figure, since there's no telling how much the movie's BO was hurt by COVID, bad reviews, etc. Second, at least according to the original public-facing figures, the Disney+ figure for rentals was $60M. Now, that could be the result of books-cooking, and it's presumably grown some since then. But the notion that she get $50m when D+ rentals didn't earn that much more could be a nonstarter.

On the flipside, Disney may just want to stand pat and have a court say "A contract is a contract is a contract" and rely on that ScarJo's doesn't specify that she gets a piece of streaming that is simultaneous with the studio launch. Disney might not want other stars of features to try the same tactics for any film it has released simultaneously with streaming (which could be a lot for 2021 through Disney/Fox, according to some quick Interwebs searching)

Disney has always treated ScarJo poorly. She was already a huge star without the Black Widow gig and a respected actress in her own right, and they kept her in a supporting character/love interest role for a decade. They even screwed her out of at least one action figure, giving Captain America her cool bike accessory.

I'm glad she's sticking up for herself.

I agree she deserves more and that Disney should have voluntarily restructured the contract to give a piece of the simultaneous streaming revenue.

But given that her work in the MCU probably has earned her over $100M over the 10 years she was a part of it, I don't know if "poorly" would be the first adverb I would grab.

I get that she's not in the position of making Jost sneak her home food from work, but money isn't the only consideration when accepting a role. Working actors (especially women) need the projects they do to properly showcase their talents so they can keep getting better jobs with higher salaries and more prominent roles. That's why John Boyega was so deservedly angry when Disney sidelined Finn in TROS, and how Quentin Tarantino can draw in big stars hoping for a career-changing John Travolta/Uma Thurman type of role.

Disney screwed her over, and apparently used her long-deserved solo film to focus on her replacement. She's right to be angry and at least demand to get paid more.

She won’t win.

It is. The movie has made just over $300-million in box office worldwide and an additional $60-million in streaming.

The movie cost $200-million to produce, and factoring in the rule of Hollywood marketing costs, it's probably only made about $100-million in profit.

Even with her starring role and Executive Producer credit, I doubt she would be entitled to anything near $50-million.

But this is Hollywood accounting, so who knows.

They screwed her by shoehorning in Captain Marvel before Endgame.

There was plenty of room for her after Civil War and before Endgame, there were three years there.

And yet one happened, and the other didn't.

You know who else sued Disney? Robin Williams. He found out that he wasn't getting any royalties for all the Aladdin merch featuring the genie. So he sued 'em. That's why Gilbert Godfried was the voice of the genie in Aladdin 2. Williams was back as the genie in 3 because he won the suit (or at least was happy with the money they paid him and Disney wasn't pissed enough at him suing them that they didn't want him to work for them again). So this might not be the issue some claim it is.

Black Widow is not worth $50 million, but Scarlett Johansson is worth every penny.

Just make better movies. Marvel salaries are blood money.

Just make sure you're getting her and not one of her many clones.

Yes we've all seen Star Wars II unfortunately.

Dan Castellaneta.

WTF ever. I only saw the first one and am going off of memory because DTV 90s stuff is basically hot garbage or softcore pr0n.

I thought Homer Simpson did an okay job.

So, you’re saying that it was softcore pr0n.

Yeah, because they took ScarJo for granted.

I guess she played all those minority characters so convincingly that Disney started treating her like one.

I know I'm going to suffer the wrath of geekdom by saying this, but I think Captain Marvel is a far more interesting character than Black Widow (as portrayed in the MCU... can't speak for the comics.)

It was also frankly more important that we got the Captain Marvel movie before Endgame than a standalone Black Widow film.

Captain Marvel was rushed, forced, and overall a week storyline to make up for shit added in Endgame that didn't make any sense. Better writing and better planning would have been made for a better movie.

That said, both characters could have very interesting storylines. Hollywood just needs to stop treating women as a prop for men.

Also, Brie Larson suuuuuuuuuucks.

what else was she in?

Just checked IMDB. Nothing worth watching ...

"Room" was really good.
She acted the shit out of that.
Dunno if it was worth the critics filling their pants with cream, but I enjoyed it.