Agreed. Natasha needs better lawyers.
Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney over Black Widow’s streaming release
- Thread starter JSOP
- Start date
Agreed. Natasha needs better lawyers.
It is not about the virus... courts review language in contracts for common usage within an industry. If this contract was drafted in 2018 or 2019 based on many previous contracts where a back end deal based on wide release was clearely understood to mean theaters across the country, then it is NOT a change in the interpretation of words in the contract. Both sides entered the contract believing in release in theaters otherwise Disney would have put it in the contract at the time. COVID changed EVERYTHING.
Many people here are not familiar with contract law but a court gives meaning to language in a contract based on intent of the parties and common usage within an industry. Again, if this contract was signed in 2018 it matters as Disney+ was announced in 2018 to launch in late 2019. The language of the contract mentions wide release and ScarJo cna show that language was used to mean theatrical in the several contracts all signed prior with other parties she can establish the intent and that changing the meaning or intent to now include streaming after the fact is something that would have to be in writing clearly. the court WILL NOT put into a contract something not clearly intended by the parties.
Therefore although the case is not super strong, Scarlett does have a valid point within the law of contract language interpretation.
DIsney us making hundreds of millions of dollars off of this movie so the claim that Scarlett is looking to profit to the DETRIMENT OF OTHERS is silly. Poor Disney... they will only make $500 million dollars instead of $550 million....
Again, I think Disney will cut her a deal because she was part of a successful series and Disney does not want to go to court and have a judge define future contracts with streaming now involved, they want to be able to handle it themselves.
Black Widow receipts are $220MM to date.$160MM box office and $60MM streaming. Production costs were over $200MM before marketing. Rule of thumb is 2x production. Figure it will have to do over $400MM worldwide to break even (streaming has 100% margins for studio).
I think it could have hit higher numbers in theaters because the summer is also a big season and there are not a lot of other blockbusters that I heard were scheduled . That alone would have probably landed Widow after its usual 6 weeks run closer to $400MM maybe domestically before it went overseas. COVID really put a dent for 2 years in movie releases and earnings. I mean Disney will still be fine but imagine you were geting amped for a super summer marvel release and COVID cuts you off completely.
I dont think we will see normal movie $$ until next summer.
I don't think the theaters will ever recover now that streaming is the norm. You release it on PPV a week after it hits theaters? The upside is that the studios/streamers can't fudge the numbers when they have the streaming revs to the penny. Actors like ScarJo are going to ask for 20-30% of the streaming rev.
I'll tell you who's gonna do well, at least in the near term, and I don't think there's any kind of trade here because I think most of them are private... the VPN's.
Kids today are internet savy af. And they also firmly believe anything on the net is free. Now some of you may live sheltered lives with sheltered kids, kids that WOULD NEVER do anything as evil as torrent a new movie, but I can tell you, they are the exception.
When Disney's Cruella came out, it was released in the theaters the same time it was released via Disney+. It was on the torrent sites in a matter of minutes.
This is going to be a real problem for the studios.
I expect the MPAA to really start raising hell in DC.
Expect more crackdowns on the pirating of movies via peer-to-peer networks.
Its always been there, but they only went after the websites, hardly ever an individual.
And even now, there's a dozen Pirate-Bay mirrors out there.
All of this, along with the other myriad of personal privacy issues that exist today, it all bodes well for the continued growth of the dozen or so VPN operations out there.
And lets take this one step further while we have our "future looking"... looking glass out here.
As things progress,you can expect more and more U.S. laws pertaining to VPN's and their current policies like "we keep no logs" etc.
It'll be like the UK, China, and Russia soon enough. These lobbies have our lawmakers at their beck and call. Disney WILL win.
Last edited:
People who are not computer-savvy and don't know these things.
Remember man...Smartphones+millennial=not underbelly of Internet.
So...Disney+ and 30 bux per month.
I love going to the movies but yeah..if it is going to be available cheaper on streaming.. my laziness wins