The "Black Widow (2021)" Film Thread - SPOILERS!!! Now Out On Home Video Sept 14

[jingle.boy]

Exactly... let's leave the legal stuff to the pros. 

[Stadler]

Exactly... let's leave the legal stuff to the pros. 

Exactly!

Wait.........

[bosk1]

So...the movie was, again, pretty good, after having it set in for a bit.  I didn't pay for it on D+, so I only saw it one time in the theater.  This is probably the first Marvel film I don't have immediate plans to purchase on physical media.  Nothing wrong with the film.  But I'm just...I dunno...I kinda feel like Marvel reached its peak with the conclusion of phase 4.  I don't feel the strong urge to be a completist going forward.  That could change if the next few films are really good.  But I imagine I'll probably just see them once in theaters, and then repeat view later when they go free on D+.  I hear there are some deleted scenes I need to go back and watch now, so I may do that soon.  Maybe that will rekindle my interest.  But for now, I'm content having seen it once, and I look forward to the next film.

[lonestar]

You bring up an interesting point, that they peaked with Endgame, and we're stuck in this 'where does it go from here' phase that may take 4 or 5 movies to start getting the ball rolling again, to develop a continuous storyline that we can all get vested in. I'm gonna guess Spiderman will be the one to break that seal, or Dr Strange.

[Stadler]

You bring up an interesting point, that they peaked with Endgame, and we're stuck in this 'where does it go from here' phase that may take 4 or 5 movies to start getting the ball rolling again, to develop a continuous storyline that we can all get vested in. I'm gonna guess Spiderman will be the one to break that seal, or Dr Strange.

I feel this emotion, too, but Dr. Strange - my favorite character in the MCU - is where I'm pinning my hopes.  I loved the comic character and I love Brandon Cucumberpatch's portrayal. 

[lonestar]

You bring up an interesting point, that they peaked with Endgame, and we're stuck in this 'where does it go from here' phase that may take 4 or 5 movies to start getting the ball rolling again, to develop a continuous storyline that we can all get vested in. I'm gonna guess Spiderman will be the one to break that seal, or Dr Strange.

I feel this emotion, too, but Dr. Strange - my favorite character in the MCU - is where I'm pinning my hopes.  I loved the comic character and I love Brandon Cucumberpatch's portrayal.

And you just reached the Endgame point, most of us have been sitting here for three years waiting for 'what's next' 

[bosk1]

You bring up an interesting point, that they peaked with Endgame, and we're stuck in this 'where does it go from here' phase that may take 4 or 5 movies to start getting the ball rolling again, to develop a continuous storyline that we can all get vested in. I'm gonna guess Spiderman will be the one to break that seal, or Dr Strange.

Well, don't get me wrong--I'm not saying that things will "decline" and fade away.  I'm perfectly OK with Endgame being the peak and with future arcs not achieving that emotional resonance.  I'll still likely enjoy them.  And I don't need them to reach as high.  But I sense that they are still striving for that and still swinging for the fences, which is cool.  I'm glad they are aspiring to that same greatness.  Just not expecting it, and totally cool if they never hit it again.

[lonestar]

First time is always the best time

[The Letter M]

For anyone interested, Black Widow is now out on home video today. I know Target has a special edition that is in line with their previous special editions (coming with a condensed behind-the-scenes book and an o-card slipcover). I called my Target this morning and they said they didn't have any in stock (as the website showed as well), so I just ordered it online, which is fine, but I had to pay for shipping. Ah well.

Anyone else getting Black Widow on home video? I'm sure Best Buy has a steelbook, but I don't collect those. I'm not sure if Wal Mart has any sort of special exclusive, though. At any rate, I'm excited to check out some of the behind-the-scenes video extras on the home video!

-Marc.

[Kotowboy]

Already out on DVD ? When did it come out in the cinema ?

Wiki says June. Pretty fast turnaround..

Also : Budget   $200 million[2]
Box office   $372.7 million[3][4][a]

Yikes.

[The Letter M]

Already out on DVD ? When did it come out in the cinema ?

Wiki says June. Pretty fast turnaround..

Also : Budget   $200 million[2]
Box office   $372.7 million[3][4][a]

Yikes.

June? I thought the wide release date was July 9th (with a July 8th Thursday night preview), so less than 10 weeks from theater to home video, which is INSANELY fast. The digital video release was just over a month from theatrical release. Granted, I'm sure the home video units have been made and stuck in a warehouse for MONTHS now given how many times the film was delayed, so I think they probably just wanted to get it out there ASAP.

-Marc.

[countoftuscany42]

picked up the Best Buy steelbook earlier since I've been collecting them since the start of phase 3, glad I managed to get it while it was still available since I've missed out on some limited steelbooks lately like The Thing.  Eventually I'll need to start upgrading my phase 1 and 2 films to 4K, but since I have the phase box sets for each of those I haven't wanted to spend even more until there's a good deal or a new run of early MCU steelbooks (doubtful that'll be any time soon tho).  Anyone else a financially irresponsible collector like me? 

[ZirconBlue]

Already out on DVD ? When did it come out in the cinema ?

Wiki says June. Pretty fast turnaround..

Also : Budget   $200 million[2]
Box office   $372.7 million[3][4][a]

Yikes.

Box Office numbers don't include Disney+ Premiere income, which, unlike the box office take, doesn't have to be split with the theaters.

[jingle.boy]

Or the actors! 

[lonestar]

[Adami]

Disney's gotta figure out that contract stuff. I read they were trying to work with the Russo brothers again who may have put a halt to it all because of this. As in, what if THEIR movie goes straight to streaming?

[ariich]

Yeah Disney really don't seem to have done themselves any favours by changing their plans without consulting/renegotiating with the star(s), whereas Warner/DC for all that they've got wrong, did at least do that right.

That said, they announced it was going to be on Disney+ Premier sometime before it actually came out, so ScarJo could also have approached them during that time. Really, neither party comes out especially well from this.

[countoftuscany42]

Warner/DC may have figured out the new deals before the films were released or before it got to the point of litigation like with ScarJo, but they absolutely did NOT get it right.  Most of their big-name directors are still furious that Warner sent their 2021 film slate directly to HBOMax without consulting them, and now they lost one of their biggest directors in Christopher Nolan to Universal. 

[ZirconBlue]

That said, they announced it was going to be on Disney+ Premier sometime before it actually came out, so ScarJo could also have approached them during that time. Really, neither party comes out especially well from this.

According to the original WSJ article about this suit, she did approach them:

According to the complaint, Ms. Johansson’s representatives sought to renegotiate her contract after learning of the dual-release strategy for “Black Widow,” which she has said is her ninth and last Marvel movie. Disney and Marvel were unresponsive, the suit said.

Source

[ZirconBlue]

Warner/DC may have figured out the new deals before the films were released or before it got to the point of litigation like with ScarJo, but they absolutely did NOT get it right.  Most of their big-name directors are still furious that Warner sent their 2021 film slate directly to HBOMax without consulting them, and now they lost one of their biggest directors in Christopher Nolan to Universal.

They're upset about the release strategy, but WB paid out $200Million to renegotiate these deals. 

[ariich]

That said, they announced it was going to be on Disney+ Premier sometime before it actually came out, so ScarJo could also have approached them during that time. Really, neither party comes out especially well from this.

According to the original WSJ article about this suit, she did approach them:

According to the complaint, Ms. Johansson’s representatives sought to renegotiate her contract after learning of the dual-release strategy for “Black Widow,” which she has said is her ninth and last Marvel movie. Disney and Marvel were unresponsive, the suit said.

Source

Well, if that's true then that was kind of dumb on the part of Disney.

Warner/DC may have figured out the new deals before the films were released or before it got to the point of litigation like with ScarJo, but they absolutely did NOT get it right.  Most of their big-name directors are still furious that Warner sent their 2021 film slate directly to HBOMax without consulting them, and now they lost one of their biggest directors in Christopher Nolan to Universal.

They're upset about the release strategy, but WB paid out $200Million to renegotiate these deals. 

Yeah that's my understanding too, they don't see concurrent streaming as a good model for releases, but they at least had the opportunity to renegotiate their deals.

[lordxizor]

That said, they announced it was going to be on Disney+ Premier sometime before it actually came out, so ScarJo could also have approached them during that time. Really, neither party comes out especially well from this.

According to the original WSJ article about this suit, she did approach them:

According to the complaint, Ms. Johansson’s representatives sought to renegotiate her contract after learning of the dual-release strategy for “Black Widow,” which she has said is her ninth and last Marvel movie. Disney and Marvel were unresponsive, the suit said.

Source

Well, if that's true then that was kind of dumb on the part of Disney.

Disney clearly believed (and likely still believes) that what they were doing with the release on D+ was not in violation of the contract. They almost assuredly consulted with some of the best lawyers in the world about the contract. Why renegotiate a contract when there's no need to?

Now, it remains to be seen if Disney is correct that they were not in violation of the contract, but we can only speculate since we haven't read it. I would be shocked if this is as cut and dry in Scarlett's favor as most people seem to think it is.

[Stadler]

That said, they announced it was going to be on Disney+ Premier sometime before it actually came out, so ScarJo could also have approached them during that time. Really, neither party comes out especially well from this.

According to the original WSJ article about this suit, she did approach them:

According to the complaint, Ms. Johansson’s representatives sought to renegotiate her contract after learning of the dual-release strategy for “Black Widow,” which she has said is her ninth and last Marvel movie. Disney and Marvel were unresponsive, the suit said.

Source

Well, if that's true then that was kind of dumb on the part of Disney.

Disney clearly believed (and likely still believes) that what they were doing with the release on D+ was not in violation of the contract. They almost assuredly consulted with some of the best lawyers in the world about the contract. Why renegotiate a contract when there's no need to?

Now, it remains to be seen if Disney is correct that they were not in violation of the contract, but we can only speculate since we haven't read it. I would be shocked if this is as cut and dry in Scarlett's favor as most people seem to think it is.

Scroll back: I wrote a lot about this and along those same lines.  I think a lot of this has to do with the general perception of <Charleton Heston Voice> "BIG BAD CORPORATION" and <Betty Boop Voice> "meek little actress".   

First, it's never going to court, but if it does, I would be stunned if this went in Scarlett's favor, absent an aggressive, judicially active court.

[Adami]

I think there's more Disney should worry about than "Is this technically legal?"

Why should future stars or people with sway in hollywood work with them if they can so easily be screwed over? The Russo's just brought negotiations to a pause because of this. And those are the guys responsible for their highest grossing films (not counting Fox stuff). How many future actors/writers/directors/etc will start to think twice about working with Disney after this?

Not everything is simply a matter of "legal or illegal."

[ariich]

I think there's more Disney should worry about than "Is this technically legal?"

Why should future stars or people with sway in hollywood work with them if they can so easily be screwed over? The Russo's just brought negotiations to a pause because of this. And those are the guys responsible for their highest grossing films (not counting Fox stuff). How many future actors/writers/directors/etc will start to think twice about working with Disney after this?

Not everything is simply a matter of "legal or illegal."

Yes, this exactly.

[Stadler]

I think there's more Disney should worry about than "Is this technically legal?"

Why should future stars or people with sway in hollywood work with them if they can so easily be screwed over? The Russo's just brought negotiations to a pause because of this. And those are the guys responsible for their highest grossing films (not counting Fox stuff). How many future actors/writers/directors/etc will start to think twice about working with Disney after this?

Not everything is simply a matter of "legal or illegal."

But to be clear, I agree with you on this point: Disney SHOULD consider more variables.  That's just smart business for them.  If they don't, however, we can't make them.   The only thing we CAN force them to do IS simply a matter of "legal" or "illegal".   

If you want a general conversation about the movie business, and how the various studios should or should not manage their revenue streams, that's one thing.  If you want to have a specific conversation about the merits of Scarlett's case, that's an entire other thing (almost wholly unrelated).   The Scarlett aspect is driven almost entirely by "legal" and "illegal". 

Having said all of that, I feel like Disney is not going to hurt for actors/actresses to work for them.  This isn't the first time that the Mouse has done something that is seemingly unfriendly to the talent. It's a BUSINESS, and at the end of the day there are more people that will compromise their principles for a hefty paycheck than there are people that will go back to Montana on those principles.

[axeman90210]

I feel like the majority of the discussion around this has stemmed from it being nebulous as to whether we're we're talking about what Disney should do and what Disney is legally required to do. I'll leave the latter to actual lawyers (and Stadler ), but as to the former I tend to side with Scarlett. She agreed to do a movie and the compensation was partially based on an expectation of a certain box office performance range. I don't think it's controversial to say that the movie would have done markedly better at the box office if not for Covid. It's great that Disney was able to pivot to an alternate release model, but given that it's very easy to see the revenue generated by the D+ release (since it was not included in a D+ subscription, but a separate fee) then they should be doing something in terms of compensation for those who lost out on box office performance based pay. Probably wouldn't be hard to put together a reasonable model to argue that it makes financial sense too. Weigh the cost of paying out a portion of the D+ release revenues versus potential additional costs from future negotiations (see the Russos) and generation of goodwill from voluntarily paying their people.

[Adami]

I think there's more Disney should worry about than "Is this technically legal?"

Why should future stars or people with sway in hollywood work with them if they can so easily be screwed over? The Russo's just brought negotiations to a pause because of this. And those are the guys responsible for their highest grossing films (not counting Fox stuff). How many future actors/writers/directors/etc will start to think twice about working with Disney after this?

Not everything is simply a matter of "legal or illegal."

But to be clear, I agree with you on this point: Disney SHOULD consider more variables.  That's just smart business for them.  If they don't, however, we can't make them.   The only thing we CAN force them to do IS simply a matter of "legal" or "illegal".   

If you want a general conversation about the movie business, and how the various studios should or should not manage their revenue streams, that's one thing.  If you want to have a specific conversation about the merits of Scarlett's case, that's an entire other thing (almost wholly unrelated).   The Scarlett aspect is driven almost entirely by "legal" and "illegal". 

Having said all of that, I feel like Disney is not going to hurt for actors/actresses to work for them.  This isn't the first time that the Mouse has done something that is seemingly unfriendly to the talent. It's a BUSINESS, and at the end of the day there are more people that will compromise their principles for a hefty paycheck than there are people that will go back to Montana on those principles.

Well, you keep using words like "force" and I don't think any of us (save for Hef) have the ability to do that. We're not forcing anyone to do anything. We're saying what we think they should do. We DO have every right to do that. I agree that if we're discussing the legal merits of the case (which many of us are at times) then it really is down to legal/illegal. But a lot of the conversation goes beyond that and keeps getting brought back to that, which I don't think is helpful.

And it's not a matter of principles. It IS a matter of business. What they did to Scarlet isn't scaring off the Russo brother's because of their principles. They're nervous that it will happen to them. That is bad for business for Disney. They will likely be fine, but they are also likely going to miss out on major opportunities because of the reputation they are getting with this. It might be GOOD for business to renegotiate with Scarlet and let that set a precedent for how future contracts will look, thus allowing people like the Russo's to feel more confident getting into bed with them.

[Stadler]

Of course you have that right.  Never said otherwise.  But there's a degree of reasonableness.  I think Disney SHOULD open their parks for free, and give me free, cold beer each time I get on a ride.  And I have that right to say that.  It's not grounded in any reality other than my own but I have the right to say that.

It'd just be nice for once to have even ONE post say "I get that it's not reality, I get that it would likely have other consequences I know nothing about, but I'd sure feel a lot better if this is how it was handled!"   Instead, it's like the threads on the new DT song; you SAY you're respectful to the legal argument, and you SAY you understand it, but the bulk of the posts don't read that way. 

I'm not sure I've articulated this yet, but I would not be THAT surprised if Disney WANTED her to sue so that they COULD pay her, in a confidential settlement, as opposed to making a unilateral decision that would (potentially) have dollars consequences far beyond her particular cut.  Wouldn't be the first time.

Not to say that companies don't make bad decisions - they do - but for every bad decision you hear about there are 10's of thousands of decisions that are good (more or less) that you've never heard of.   If I learned anything working for General Electric for over a decade, the crazier a corporate decision seems to the outsider, the less crazy it ACTUALLY likely was in the boardroom.

[Adami]

Of course you have that right.

Quoted the important part. \


Edit: Dammit! I misread that as you saying that I am right. Damn you!

[Stadler]

Of course you have that right.

Quoted the important part. \


Edit: Dammit! I misread that as you saying that I am right. Damn you!

I am the Thesaurus, after all. 

[Adami]

Of course you have that right.

Quoted the important part. \


Edit: Dammit! I misread that as you saying that I am right. Damn you!

I am the Thesaurus, after all. 

 

[hefdaddy42]

Funny how there's not really another word for "thesaurus".

[jingle.boy]

Funny how there's not really another word for "thesaurus".

I thought it was stadler?

[Stadler]

Funny how there's not really another word for "thesaurus".

I thought it was stadler?

I wasn't going to point that out, but...