Disney+ Black Widow (2021) (1 Viewer)

[jayembee]

In the Before Times, I was going to the movies at least once a week. Now, I'm starting to go back slowly, but I'm being a lot more selective than I would be without COVID. it has to be something really important to me. In the Heights was that and Black Widow was that too and I am glad I got to see both on those on big screen. But I'm still not sure about returning on an especially frequent basis just yet.

My wife and I were thrilled to be back in a theater to see Black Widow.

Given the recent concerns about the Delta variant, we haven't decided whether to do the same with The Suicide Squad.

 

[jayembee]

Did anyone see Black Widow in IMAX format? If so, I'm curious: what scenes were filmed in the expanded aspect ratio?

My theatrical screening was in Cinemark XD, which is the premium format brand at my local theater. But because they are not IMAX branded, they were only showing the scope aspect ratio version.

The only IMAX here is inside an AMC theater which I hate, and I won't patronize a company that has been disrespectful to me even for an exclusive aspect ratio.

I saw it in IMAX, but I can't really answer your question. I was too engrossed in the movie to notice. I was more or less focused on the story.

However, based on knowing about what scenes in The Dark Night were shot for IMAX, my best guesses would be:

The "car chase" in Budapest.
The Gulag jail-break.
Abandoning the Red Room flying fortress.

 

[benbess]

I feel like Disney should have just said "No comment." What they said instead seemed out of line, and I feel like maybe it's already coming back to haunt them.

 

[jcroy]

In five years, she is going to be getting less work in Hollywood films regardless of any sort of "reputation" that she supposedly acquires. Everyone knows that the shelf life for female actors in Hollywood is vastly shorter than for males. Female actors have to make sure they maximize their earnings in the short time period that they have career-wise.

ScarJo isn't going to be getting big Hollywood roles in her Seventies, unlike Harrison Ford is. I don't blame her for being pissed that a corporation making hundreds if billions of dollars would try to skim another dime off her earnings. The idea that Capitalists and corporations have the rignt to do whatever they want to skim another Nickle needs to die already.

(Thinking about this more).

If she keeps on fighting, perhaps she might have other goals beyond her acting career. For example, does she have ambitions to become the head of the screen actors guild (sag) or even run for office in state/federal politics?

At minimum if she wins even if her acting career goes down the toilet, the idea is the set a legal precedent when it comes to actor/actress contracts in regard to streaming services.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Like I said before, I’m done with her and the character. Rich people arguing with even richer people about getting an obscene amount of money.

If it's true that both Kevin Feige and Bob Iger are both pissed about the way Disney treated her, then I trust their point of view.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Disney's statement was worded in such a way as to cause reactions like Jason's. They wanted to paint her as greedy, which is why they mentioned the pandemic and threw in her $20 million base salary. That is an absolutely disgusting way to treat anyone, but especially who has been a key player for Disney not only on her nine Marvel pictures but also The Jungle Book and Jojo Rabbit which they released.

Backend participation is absolutely standard in the industry. She signed that contract believing that her backend would be comparable to the millions of backend earned by the other Avengers in their standalone films. It is entirely reasonable for her to expect pay parity with them, especially on a film she also produced. As far as I know, her producing credit is the first time any Avenger has been a producer on a Marvel film. COVID doesn't invalidate Disney's obligation to fulfill their contractual obligations to her. If they wanted to change the release strategy, they should have renegotiated to do that.

Disney should have handled this differently and made this right with her before she sued. It is an embarrassing failure of leadership on their part that they didn't. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves for the extreme nature of their statement and whoever wrote it should be fired. That's not how you treat your talent.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I don’t mean to put words in his mouth, but Jason’s reaction, as well as mine, were formed before Disney had put out a statement. Those responses were provoked by the text of the lawsuit, which made two claims specifically that caused us to react as we did. One claim was that there was no need to consider a hybrid release strategy because the circumstances causing depressed attendance would be resolved very shortly, making a statement that basically read as “the pandemic will be over and normal will be back in September”. As much as I wish that were the case, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest this will be the case. The other questionable claim was that Disney changed the release strategy for the sole intent of reducing compensation. While that might have been an unintended result, I do not believe for a second that Disney said, “Let’s do a hybrid we don’t have to just so we don’t have to pay the cast as much.” That seems a bit far fetched. No one would be happier than Disney, from a financial perspective, to have the pandemic be over and to go back to business as usual.

Besides the questionable nature of those claims in a vacuum, it seemed particularly egregious to release a statement that essentially said “The Disney+ move was unnecessary because the pandemic is about to end” in literally the same week said that “the war has changed” and recommended new masking and indoor policies because of the sudden rise in new cases.

Now, I know that Johansson didn’t write those statements and that lawyers are going to lawyer. And @Josh Dial was kind enough to donate his experience to the thread and point out that legally, the standard practice is to sue now rather than waiting for a time when those claims would seem less tone deaf. As a legal strategy, it might work. And once lawyers begin litigating the case, perhaps it will turn out that those claims were more correct than appears possible.

Right now, the parties are making claims that cannot both be true: Johansson’s lawsuit is saying that the Disney+ release is taking money out of her pocket, and Disney is saying that she is being compensated from both theatrical and Disney+ grosses. Both of those statements can’t be true and if Disney is telling the truth, or if Disney is lying, either way, it’ll be easy to show in court.

There is a separate issue that Johansson may have felt her contract entitled her to a say in the matter, while Disney apparently feels it did not so long as she is paid. That sounds more lawyerly and I don’t have a take on that. But I don’t think that issue is the one that is causing a negative response, and the focus on the “money/no reason for a hybrid at all because the pandemic is almost over” argument that the lawyers put forth for public consumption was, as I said at the time, a tone deaf move. Her legal team may win in court but I believe it is the actions of that team that created this P.R. issue. Had they not fired that shot, Disney wouldn’t have felt forced to return in kind.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I don’t mean to put words in his mouth, but Jason’s reaction, as well as mine, were formed before Disney had put out a statement.

I did not mean to imply that either of you had reacted because of the statement so that was badly worded on my part and I apologize for that. But I think Disney wrote that statement to illicit similar reactions, and I think that was bad form.

IOne claim was that there was no need to consider a hybrid release strategy because the circumstances causing depressed attendance would be resolved very shortly, making a statement that basically read as “the pandemic will be over and normal will be back in September”. As much as I wish that were the case, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest this will be the case.

This part of the lawsuit used a quote by Bob Chapek saying that Free Guy and Shang-Chi will be theatrical exclusives because Disney believes the theatrical market will be more recovered by the time those come out. Chapek said that earlier in the year. I can absolutely see why Johansson and/or her legal team would say, "Wait a minute, why are you releasing those exclusively and not Black Widow?" Obviously, the rise of the Delta variant means that things are not going to be better. But they were using that argument because Chapek introduced it in relation to those other films.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

When I was a senior in film school in Boston, we had a finals screening scheduled for a Friday - it was the first and only opportunity for students in my class/year to show the work they had spent that semester, if not years, working on.

The Thursday night before, the Red Sox made it into the World Series in spectacular celebration and the whole town celebrated. Lots of people congregated outside the ballpark enjoying the moment, and some engaged in harmless pranks like climbing lampposts. The police were called and overreacted, firing supposedly non-lethal ammunition into the non-violent crowd. One of those bullets went through the eye of a person in the crowd, killing her instantly.

That person was a student at my college.

All events scheduled that Friday were canceled out of respect and to allow a day of mourning, including my screening, the one chance anyone in my class would have to show their work.

Because the venue hosting the screening was also used for non college events booked months and years in advance like theater and concert tours, there was no possibility of rescheduling the screening, and no other venues available on campus to move it to.

When my college promised incoming freshmen than they’d get to have a screening there for their senior projects, there was no way for them to have predicted the sequence of events that led to my screening being canceled.

When the event was canceled, the people doing so were trying to do the right thing as human beings in an incredible difficult moment.

It was a terribly unfortunate situation all around. No one was acting in bad faith. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes things don’t work out as planned through no one’s fault.

I think my class had a reason to be disappointed. I think my college had reasons to make the decision they made. No one faulted me for being disappointed. But you can bet they would have if I had said, “they just used that student’s death to get out of holding a screening.”

And that, to me, is what Johansson’s lawyers sound like.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I think you hit the nail on the head in an earlier post that Disney did not want to push Black Widow later because they do not want to hold up the entire Marvel line further. They had to put out Black Widow before Hawkeye and give audiences a chance to see it before launching that show so that we will know who Yelena is in that show. Marvel is unique in this respect because their projects are interconnected.

Paramount delayed their movie of Clifford The Big Red Dog this week due to concerns about the delta variant. They can still release Top Gun in November if they want to because Clifford and Top Gun don't have anything to do with each other. If Marvel had pushed Black Widow back further, they would have needed to also push back Hawkeye accordingly.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

And I think it’s clear they felt they had legal ability to do so, provided that they shared a percentage of the digital grosses.

It’ll be interesting to see what a court decides as they’ll have all the contracts and payment records as well as perspective on the reality of this moment.

I’m fascinated if this is a case of “They said they paid a percentage of the digital and didn’t” or if it’s a case of “The movie should have made more in a perfect world and I expect to be paid as if it’s a perfect world.”

 

[Malcolm R]

I doubt it will ever go to court. They'll work out some secret settlement about which we'll never know the details.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I doubt it will ever go to court. They'll work out some secret settlement about which we'll never know the details.

That would certainly be the best option for Disney.

However, this case has the opportunity to set precedent for how backend deals in the industry are hammered out in the future, possibly for decades to come. Already we've heard rumors that Emma Stone is considering a suit over Cruella as well. If Johansen is interested in making an example of Disney, she might want this to go to court at this point so that that precedent is clear and known.

We'll see.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

It’ll be interesting to see what a court decides as they’ll have all the contracts and payment records as well as perspective on the reality of this moment.

I don't think "the reality of this moment" really enters into it. Either Disney's actions violated Johansson's contract or they didn't.

If the answer to that question is clear cut, then it's a matter of one party trying to bully the other party into accepting an alternative arrangement.

If the answer to that question is not clear cut, then the risks of going to trial for both parties would exceed whatever would be lost in a discreet out of court settlement.

 

[Jake Lipson]

“They said they paid a percentage of the digital and didn’t”

They never said that they paid her a percentage of the digital revenues.

Their statement said that the Premier Access release "enhanced her ability to earn additional compensation," not that she did earn additional compensation. The wording is deliberately vague and written in such a way as to make her look bad.

I agree with Adam here. Either the court will find that Disney honored her contract or that they did not. I don't think the pandemic has anything to do with the language in the contract, no matter what either party says.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

They never said that they paid her a percentage of the digital revenues.

Their statement said that the Premier Access release "enhanced her ability to earn additional compensation," not that she did earn additional compensation. The wording is deliberately vague and written in such a way as to make her look bad.

Variety ran an article yesterday that provided a little more clarity on this point.

Apparently, Disney treated Premier Access revenue like box office for the purposes of the bonus requirements in the contract. So she did get a piece of what Disney made from the Premier Access sales.

However, Disney also apparently unilaterally imposed that arrangement on Johansson, even though her contract was based on the principle of an exclusive theatrical window.

So it seems that's the crux of the dispute: Johansson thought Disney should have renegotiated when it imposed a nontraditional release strategy on Marvel Studios for the movie. Disney thought that counting the Premier Access sales as box office revenue satisfied Marvel Studios' contractual obligations to her.

 

[Tommy R]

 

[Edwin-S]

If it's true that both Kevin Feige and Bob Iger are both pissed about the way Disney treated her, then I trust their point of view.

Bob Iger is pissed at Disney for the way they treated her? Seriously? Bob Iger IS Disney and if he actually was pissed then he would step in and solve it. Johansson can take this is as a lesson. She is just getting a taste of how Disney treats the vast majority of their workforce.

Edit: Oops. I forgot that Iger stepped down and that his replacement was named Bob too. My mistake. I only started remembering after I had posted and had to check on it.

 

[Jake Lipson]

(Found via social media, not actually my creation. Credit to whomever made it.)

 

[Jake Lipson]

Bob Iger is pissed at Disney for the way they treated her? Seriously? Bob Iger IS Disney and if he actually was pissed then he would step in and solve it.

The Wrap actually had an article earlier this week about how there has been a rift between Bob Iger and his CEO replacement, Bob Chapek, which may have contributed to Disney's mishandling of the situation with Johansson.