Paulie’s Perspective – I Want My Money!

A quick note about Scarlett Johansson and her Disney lawsuit. I mean, I’m not surprised – everyone is scratching and clawing for that extra dollar these days. There is no such thing as selling out anymore – big time actors are doing insurance commercials, phone company commercials, and even car commercials. These days, we all want as much as we can get and hey, money is money, right? 

Now naturally the head of SAG has backed ScoJo – after all he is her representative and his salary is directly connected to her salary. So he’s all for getting more money. Producer Kevin Feige has backed ScoJo – he wants talent to trust him and work for him in the future, so of course he’s on the actor’s side. 

So what is the all hub bub about? Well big names like ScoJo who has been Black Widow for over 10 years, are elite – they can earn back points on a movie. So instead of getting paid up front before the movie, they get money from a percentage of what the movie rakes in. Sometimes that is huge, like Jack Nicholson famously did in the first Batman, sometimes it can be painful, like Black Widow. 

ScoJo signed on for some back points, and she is claiming that Disney releasing her movie through Disney+ at the same time as releasing it in the theaters, hurt her box office numbers.  Now I’m not aware if she is aware that there is a pandemic and no one is going to the movies, but we’ll assume she knows this. 

No movie, at all, has performed well or even average during this pandemic where people are literally dying from Covid. So I don’t think the Disney+ streaming release hurt her chances in a big way, maybe a little?   We’ll see what the high powered lawyers can convince the Judge of.  Either way, I don’t think it’s wrong for her to sue the giant Disney – I mean in today’s world – it’s all business, everyone is a sellout, and we are all getting as much money as we can. 

Does this open the door for other actor’s to sue with the same contract, especially if their movie did poorly and want more money?  Absolutely. 

Gerard Butler has recently sued Nu Image over his film, Olympus Has Fallen. Now, this film was released in 2013, way before Covid, and it raked in $98 million domestic, and $170 million worldwide. This film has been in audit for over two years, so it’s safe to say it’s a completely different situation than ScoJo – but still, we’ll see what other cases come out of the woodwork.  Hey, money is money, right? 

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you here next Thursday. I can be reached at paul.bernardo@me.com