• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Upcoming Marvel Adaptations

Scarlett Johansson is actually suing Disney now, over Black Widow's release:
News story

According to her, she lost FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS because it went to streaming as well as cinemas, and understandably, she's somewhat miffed. This on top of the money the movie lost, including the streaming revenue that was far less than expected, possibly because BW just isn't that exciting a character for audiences. Guess this means she's done with the role?
 
Scarlett Johansson is actually suing Disney now, over Black Widow's release:
News story

According to her, she lost FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS because it went to streaming as well as cinemas, and understandably, she's somewhat miffed. This on top of the money the movie lost, including the streaming revenue that was far less than expected, possibly because BW just isn't that exciting a character for audiences. Guess this means she's done with the role?

I think this was the last one she was contracted for and this was a "we promise you can have your own movie" type thing. She's not the greatest character and making a prequel about a lead who is already dead was fucking stupid at the best of times.

I don't know that it would have done that much more without streaming, the $60m opening only means that 2m subscribers worldwide forked out cash for something that will be available to them for free soon enough.
 
Scarlett Johansson is actually suing Disney now, over Black Widow's release:
News story

According to her, she lost FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS because it went to streaming as well as cinemas, and understandably, she's somewhat miffed. This on top of the money the movie lost, including the streaming revenue that was far less than expected, possibly because BW just isn't that exciting a character for audiences. Guess this means she's done with the role?
My question is would the people that streamed it have gone to the cinema to see it? Because there are a lot of people that are still weary and quite possibly places where the cinemas are still closed.

Also did she get paid anything from the streaming?
 
Also did she get paid anything from the streaming?
She must have done. I can't imagine how the film makers would deliberately take a loss by streaming it straight away.
They must have had some income from the streaming.
Unless...Scarlett Johansson may not have a contract structured in such a way that she would have a guaranteed level of payback from streaming?
 
She must have done. I can't imagine how the film makers would deliberately take a loss by streaming it straight away.
They must have had some income from the streaming.
Unless...Scarlett Johansson may not have a contract structured in such a way that she would have a guaranteed level of payback from streaming?
They charge extra on top of the subscription for the new films, £20 in the UK.
 
My question is would the people that streamed it have gone to the cinema to see it? Because there are a lot of people that are still weary and quite possibly places where the cinemas are still closed.

Also did she get paid anything from the streaming?
She must have done. I can't imagine how the film makers would deliberately take a loss by streaming it straight away.
They must have had some income from the streaming.
Unless...Scarlett Johansson may not have a contract structured in such a way that she would have a guaranteed level of payback from streaming?
According to Miss Johansson Disney did not include payments from streaming services, unlike Sony who renegotiated their talents contrwctsvto include payments from streaming as soon as I became apparent that cinemas were not going to be open during the pandemic
 
According to Miss Johansson Disney did not include payments from streaming services, unlike Sony who renegotiated their talents contrwctsvto include payments from streaming as soon as I became apparent that cinemas were not going to be open during the pandemic
That should put off a lot of talented people - they won't want to work with Disney again.
 
I did see a comment from Blondie's Chris Stein about Scarlett only getting $20million from Disney when BW went to streaming. He said his last Spotify royalties payment was 9 cents. There's something seriously wrong with the streaming system, on that we should agree.
 
That should put off a lot of talented people - they won't want to work with Disney again.

What makes you think the rivals are any better? Those with the money to realise the big visions and get them distributed at big profits are all trying to do so as cheaply as possible, and that means paying most of the talent peanuts.

The big names are not as numerous in the industry as you think. This is why franchises are the obsession right now: audiences recognise the brands more than they do the stars. Meanwhile Marvel hires cheap indie and TV directors who will kowtow to keep costs down.
 
On Radio 4 in a few minutes, they're discussing Scarlett vs Disney on arts magazine Front Row, they should have an expert on to unpick the threads.
 
The slot was a bit too brief on Front Row, and they did say they'll be returning to it, but the solution they offered is for stars to negotiate large payments up front before the streaming is worked out. Which is all very nice if you can command a 20 million dollar fee, but most people don't. I use streaming as much as anyone, but I'm aware it's bilking almost everyone involved in the talent side out of massive amounts of income.
 
Wouldn't most actors just get a lump sum, regardless of the profits of the box office/streaming?
 
Wouldn't most actors just get a lump sum, regardless of the profits of the box office/streaming?
The talent in franchise films, such as Marvel, had contracts including percentage cuts of box office takings, in an effort to keep them coming back to do the various sequels. It's important to retain the same talent when doing multiple films with the same characters.
 
That is sort of what I mean, it's not a common business model. So your average actor isn't losing income due to streaming in the same way a musician might.
 
That is sort of what I mean, it's not a common business model. So your average actor isn't losing income due to streaming in the same way a musician might.
I think the main issue is the contracts probably have box office profit projections, time lines for cinema release vs streaming release, and when a studio simultaneously releases a picture to its streaming site and the cinema all of those numbers in the contract go out of 5he window.
 
Disney took a hit of over $4 billion in 2020 compared to 2019.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/273555/global-revenue-of-the-walt-disney-company/

Their 'Starwars' films have done very badly at the cinemas, and their parks have all been closed, they are not that healthy in the cash dept atm, Mini Mouse might have to go on the game soon :p


That's why they're focusing on streaming, which is as close as they can get to a guaranteed profit maker at the moment. Remember there's been a pandemic that has hit the entertainment industry hard, there have been losses across the board. The new Star Wars films have been in the box office Top 10 of their years, though, so not doing that badly, not at all.
 
Disney took a hit of over $4 billion in 2020 compared to 2019.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/273555/global-revenue-of-the-walt-disney-company/

Their 'Starwars' films have done very badly at the cinemas, and their parks have all been closed, they are not that healthy in the cash dept atm, Mini Mouse might have to go on the game soon :p

The five Star Wars movies Disney released in essentially four years Dec 2015 - Dec 2019, had a combined international box office of nearly 6 billion, not to mention additional earnings from streaming to third parties, downloads, TV licensing and DVD/BR. Plus all the merchandise. They didn't do badly at all. The only failure was Solo doing by for the worst at 400M and compounded by being almost entirely reshot.

The BO for the main trilogy went 2bn - 1.3bn - 1bn. A big drop off but 2bn was an exceptional start, an overperformance that set unrealistic expectations. I think the only films that have done 2bn+ are The Force Awakens, Titanic, Avatar, and Avengers - Infinity War and Endgame. I think it will be a long time until another reaches those heights, mostly through inflation. It also might never happen if streaming continues to derail box office.

Re: Scarlett vs Disney, it's hard to have much sympathy with her when she's already a multimillionaire superstar and was paid $20m in advance. However I presume her contact was signed that said she got a share of the gross box office and did not mention streaming because that wasn't a consideration when she signed in what must have been 2019 at the very latest. I have even less sympathy for Disney though, they are knowingly fucking her over. These back end deals are signed on the basis of reducing upfront costs to give the stars a bigger hypothetical payday if the film is a success, which for a MCU film is (or was) more or less guaranteed.

Smaller actors are sometimes offered a share of the net box office, which means they get nothing as Hollywood finds a way to cook the books so films are constantly in the red. David Prose used to get an annual statement telling him that either Empire, Jedi or both were still not in profit, decades after being massive successes.

As someone pointed out we have been in a situation for a while now where the franchise/branding is the draw, and the stars secondary at best. That said, it will be interesting to see how the MCU copes without most of the original Avengers and their anchorman in RDJ. Scarily, I think we will soon be looking at a situation where deepfakes/CGI-ed actors are live in perpetuity or are brought back from the dead. I also wonder if something really bleak like "Ariel from the Little Mermaid plus 1970s Mark Hammill inserted into Casablanca" or "Humphrey Bogar and Marilyn Monroe are Batman and Wonder Woman". Yes, I'm exaggerating but possibly not much, it's crass and pathetic and awful the moral issues will be a far more easily overcome than the legal and technical ones, as always.
 
Anyone watch What If...? A parallel universe Marvel series, the first one had Peggy Carter becoming Captain... Britain? A supersoldier, anyway, instead of Captain America. Not much of a plot, and the animation's very obviously rotoscoped, if you don't like that, but it was OK.

Maybe there will be an episode where Marvel pay the original writers of their billion dollar franchises? Sorry, that's just too farfetched.
 
Maybe there will be an episode where Marvel pay the original writers of their billion dollar franchises? Sorry, that's just too farfetched.
Agree that the incredible creative people behind so much of Marvel history deserve more than token payments or being allowed to make cameo appearances. The Infinity War film borrowed VERY heavily from Jim Starlin's work, so it'd be nice to think he was recompensed more than the $5,000 that's been mentioned recently.

Interesting to read a Guardian article about this earlier in the week that either misunderstand or chooses not to look into Jim Shooter's unwillingness to return Jack Kirby's original art to him in the 70s. Fact is that Kirby was in the process of suing Marvel at the time for ownership of characters that he'd created for them under a work-for-hire contract. Had Marvel given him his original art back at that time, his lawyers would likely have argued that this proved they agreed that Kirby was the rightful owner of the characters he (co-) created. Its not difficult to find Jim Shooter himself explaining this online, but the Guardian, disappointingly, chose to paint this as something unethical.
 
Anyone watch What If...? A parallel universe Marvel series, the first one had Peggy Carter becoming Captain... Britain? A supersoldier, anyway, instead of Captain America. Not much of a plot, and the animation's very obviously rotoscoped, if you don't like that, but it was OK.

I enjoyed it, a good knockabout half hour that felt like a comic, I love the MCU stuff but it does get a bit 'downer' occasionally.

The TV shows are the best/worst for this, everything is going to shit and everyone is moping about and saying goodbye to each other and I'm sitting on the sofa going "Why don't you just text Thor?".
 
I enjoyed it, a good knockabout half hour that felt like a comic, I love the MCU stuff but it does get a bit 'downer' occasionally.

The TV shows are the best/worst for this, everything is going to shit and everyone is moping about and saying goodbye to each other and I'm sitting on the sofa going "Why don't you just text Thor?".

I think the answer to that is "Millions of dollars worth of salary".

Was skimming an article that said Marvel are planning many more cartoons (possibly because they've seen how well the DC Animations do), but I'm not sure if any will be What If...? spin-offs.
 
Back
Top