Pablo O. Scholz
07/31/2021 10:00
Clarín.com
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Updated 07/31/2021 10:00
Something has changed since
Scarlett Johansson
sued Disney on Thursday
for alleged breach of contract, simultaneously releasing
Black Widow
in theaters and streaming on Disney +.
People close to the star say that
Scarlett Johansson
missed out on earning about $ 50 million.
"It is no secret that Disney is releasing movies like
Black Widow
directly on Disney + to increase subscribers and therefore boost the company's share price, and that it is hiding behind Covid-19 as a pretext to do so." John Berlinski, Johansson's attorney, said in a statement to
Variety
.
Scarlett Johansson in "Black Widow".
The star claims she lost a fortune from the parallel streaming premiere.
Photo Marvel / Disney
The subject had already been discussed, not specifically because of Scarlett, but because Hollywood stars are reluctant to the new distribution paradigms, clearly accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
What is under discussion is the way in which the actors of the so-called List A are (re) compensated for their work, now that they are seen simultaneously in movie theaters and via streaming.
It is that many, if not almost all, are included in the profit share of the movies (the term is
back-end
) as part of their contracts.
It is speculated that Emma Stone will follow in Johansson's footsteps.
His case with "Cruella" would be similar.
Disney Photo
It's simple: Actors cut their salaries, but get a percentage of gross box office revenues from cinemas, whether in North America alone or in the global market, or they keep their salary high (US $ 20 million) and a lower percentage of those. Gross profit.
Because as brutes, the actors and their lawyers have nothing.
But if movies gross less in cinemas, the profit is less for them too.
Mat Belloni, former editor of
The Hollywood Reporter
, said Emma Stone is considering suing Disney over
Cruella's
premiere
on Disney +.
The reason would be the same: the launch in theaters and streaming would have cut their earnings at the box office.
For "Gravity," Sandra Bullock took about $ 70 million.
Photo Clarín Archive
Sandra Bullock
made an arrangement that allowed her to take, by
Gravity
, (2013) about US $ 70 million.
But that was a few years ago.
From now on, what?
At present,
Netflix
has eliminated those forms of compensation.
And the decision by Warner Bros. and Disney to launch their films simultaneously on their own streaming services turned everything upside down (not to mention what the owners of theaters say).
Warner, by sending all his 2021 releases (17) to HBO Max, when he warned that theaters would only operate with limited capacity for much of the year, he decided to "compensate" the stars of those films.
Keanu Reeves asked for "Matrix 4" an arrangement similar to Gal Gadot's for "Wonder Woman 1984."
Photo WB
Will Smith, Denzel Washington, and Keanu Reeves got their full back-end in the films Warner Bros. released on their new service, but not before screaming to the skies.
Keanu will be very good as Neo, but when he learned that WB gave
Wonder Woman 1984
director
Patty Jenkins and star Gal Gadot $ 10 million each as part of the HBO Max launch, he asked for their compensation for
Matrix 4
.
In his lawsuit, Johansson alleges that his representatives' attempts to renegotiate his compensation in light of the launch of
Black Widow
on Disney + were "ignored."
Disney in a statement responded that Johansson has already received $ 20 million for
Black Widow
and that the launch of Disney + "significantly enhanced his ability to earn additional compensation."
To be continue.
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