Post by BettyNewbie on Jul 29, 2021 14:10:12 GMT -5
Well, that was unexpected.
This, of course, is right after Black Widow just got mauled at the Box Office by a Space Jam sequel, of all things. It is one of the worst-selling MCU movies ever, if not the worst. Most people don't want to risk going to a theater to see it, nor shell out $30 to watch it on Disney+.
Could we be finally seeing the beginning of the end for the MCU? While Endgame made a shitload of money, it received mostly negative reviews. And, Black Widow's reviews haven't been much better. Could audiences finally be getting tired of these movies?
The streaming shows (like Wandavision) have fared much better, but that's a completely different medium. The shows have more creative freedom and don't have to follow the same formulaic beats as the movies. Maybe, that's where the MCU's future lies.
Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney over Black Widow's Disney Plus release
It’s been nearly eight months since the last big “holy shit” news of the pop culture world, and now Scarlett Johansson has delivered some “holy shit” news of her own: According to The Wall Street Journal, she has filed a lawsuit against Disney, claiming that the studio breached her contracted when it decided to release Black Widow on Disney+’s pricey “premier access” tier on the same day it came out in theaters. Apparently, her contract promised “an exclusive theatrical release” and WSJ says “her salary was based in large part on the box office performance of the film”—which has dropped considerably since the movie came out in July, despite Disney’s insistence that the film started off really well. Supposedly, the loss of box office revenue from putting Black Widow on Disney+ is going to cost Johansson something like $50 million.
The ramifications of this suit are potentially huge, considering that a lot of major players in Hollywood have strongly objected to the way studios dumped their films on streaming platforms in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with WSJ quoting Johansson’s attorneys as saying that “this will surely not be the last case where Hollywood talent stands up to Disney” in this way. The story also says that Johansson was concerned about Black Widow being moved to Disney+ even before the pandemic, and after finding out about Disney’s plan, her representatives tried to reach out to Disney and Marvel to work out a new deal but found them “unresponsive.” The suit even includes an email from 2019 in which a lawyer for Marvel said that the movie would get a regular theatrical release, but that if it didn’t, they would need to “come to an understanding” because of the “(very large) box office bonuses” in Johansson’s contract.
The other “holy shit” part of this is that Johansson has been very active in promoting Black Widow, as she has for every other Marvel Studios movie she’s been a part of. Her character died in Avengers: Endgame and this prequel was the last movie on her contract, but potentially burning this bridge after a decade of being a good soldier for Marvel is a pretty clear indication of how serious she is about this and how much of a big deal this could be. Disney getting slammed by one of its biggest stars like this could very well put a bit of a scare into other studios that have been actively embracing streaming—or it could at least remind them to actually work out these deals ahead of time.
It’s been nearly eight months since the last big “holy shit” news of the pop culture world, and now Scarlett Johansson has delivered some “holy shit” news of her own: According to The Wall Street Journal, she has filed a lawsuit against Disney, claiming that the studio breached her contracted when it decided to release Black Widow on Disney+’s pricey “premier access” tier on the same day it came out in theaters. Apparently, her contract promised “an exclusive theatrical release” and WSJ says “her salary was based in large part on the box office performance of the film”—which has dropped considerably since the movie came out in July, despite Disney’s insistence that the film started off really well. Supposedly, the loss of box office revenue from putting Black Widow on Disney+ is going to cost Johansson something like $50 million.
The ramifications of this suit are potentially huge, considering that a lot of major players in Hollywood have strongly objected to the way studios dumped their films on streaming platforms in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with WSJ quoting Johansson’s attorneys as saying that “this will surely not be the last case where Hollywood talent stands up to Disney” in this way. The story also says that Johansson was concerned about Black Widow being moved to Disney+ even before the pandemic, and after finding out about Disney’s plan, her representatives tried to reach out to Disney and Marvel to work out a new deal but found them “unresponsive.” The suit even includes an email from 2019 in which a lawyer for Marvel said that the movie would get a regular theatrical release, but that if it didn’t, they would need to “come to an understanding” because of the “(very large) box office bonuses” in Johansson’s contract.
The other “holy shit” part of this is that Johansson has been very active in promoting Black Widow, as she has for every other Marvel Studios movie she’s been a part of. Her character died in Avengers: Endgame and this prequel was the last movie on her contract, but potentially burning this bridge after a decade of being a good soldier for Marvel is a pretty clear indication of how serious she is about this and how much of a big deal this could be. Disney getting slammed by one of its biggest stars like this could very well put a bit of a scare into other studios that have been actively embracing streaming—or it could at least remind them to actually work out these deals ahead of time.
This, of course, is right after Black Widow just got mauled at the Box Office by a Space Jam sequel, of all things. It is one of the worst-selling MCU movies ever, if not the worst. Most people don't want to risk going to a theater to see it, nor shell out $30 to watch it on Disney+.
Could we be finally seeing the beginning of the end for the MCU? While Endgame made a shitload of money, it received mostly negative reviews. And, Black Widow's reviews haven't been much better. Could audiences finally be getting tired of these movies?
The streaming shows (like Wandavision) have fared much better, but that's a completely different medium. The shows have more creative freedom and don't have to follow the same formulaic beats as the movies. Maybe, that's where the MCU's future lies.