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Scarlett Johansson, famous for her role of Black Widow in the Marvel Universe, filed a lawsuit on July 22, 2021, in the Los Angeles court against Disney.
Ms. Johansson claimed that her contract with them was violated when they released her new film, “Black Widow”, on its streaming service at the same time it was released in theatres.
The actress stated that her agreement with Disney’s Marvel Entertainment guaranteed her an exclusive release in the theatre, and her profit off the film was largely based on the profit it made in theatres.
The suit that Ms. Johansson and her team filed claimed that Disney had purposefully persuaded Marvel’s breach of the agreement without reason to hold back Ms. Johansson from receiving the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel.
A spokesperson from Disney stated that the company had completely complied with the contract they had with Ms. Johansson and had increased her profits with the release of the movie on their streaming service. The spokesperson also said that Ms. Johansson’s suit had absolutely no grounds and that it was especially upsetting for them to disregard the horrible global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the world, as with the limited numbers of open theatres have caused major loss to the company.
There is a high chance that the future of the entertainment company will slowly start relying on streaming services rather than theatrical releases, as many major media companies have started putting their high-valued content on their streaming platforms. Actors and producers want to ensure that the increasing use of streaming services will not affect them financially, as these changes have given the world a small glimpse of a future where movies will unsurprisingly be found on streaming services.
Disney releasing movies both in the theatres and Disney+ was the result of the COVID-19 pandemic that wrecked the world, as theatres were either closed or had to severely reduce their capacity. Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal had followed a similar strategy with the release of their new movie, “The Boss Baby: Family Business” streaming on its peacock streaming service and theatres.
According to the suit, a representative had gone to renegotiate the terms of her contract after learning about the strategy of releasing “Black Widow” in theatres and their online streaming services, all of which Marvel and Disney were unresponsive to.
The contract claimed that the decision to stream the movie on Disney+ had cost Ms. Johansson more than $50 million.
The actress had been a major part of the marvel universe since her first appearance as Black Widow in the 2010 film, “Iron Man 2”. Over the years, her presence has grown significantly as a member of the Avengers, alongside Thor and Captain America. However, in the 2019 movie “Avengers: Endgame,” her character had died and the spinoff movie, “Black Widow” takes place before the events of the movie.
“Black Widow was recorded to be the worst second-week box office gross in MCU history, with the film dropping around 67% in ticketing revenue which was a huge disappointment… Essentially, Scarlett Johansson thinks she was swindled out of monetary bonuses based on her contract with Disney. I think it’s extremely disappointing why she decided to sue,” said Belinda T, a sophomore at the University of San Francisco.
The movie’s performance in theatres fell these past days more sharply than any Marvel film, supposedly disappointing the higher-ups in Marvel. This led to some Hollywood executives and analysts questioning whether allowing the movie to be streamed at home was hurting box-office results. A lobbying group for exhibitors, The National Association of Theatre Owners, had called the movie’s performance “disappointing and anomalous,” saying that an exclusive release in theatres was the most profitable strategy.
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