Scarlett Johansson sues Disney: How to measure the success of movies shown through streaming services?
This summer, the hottest thing in the global entertainment industry is probably the lawsuit between two of the most famous names: Scarlett Johansson and Disney. The American actress sued the giant entertainment corporation last week. Johansson sued Disney for deciding to release the movie in which she starred, Black Widow, at the same time both in theaters and on the Disney+ service, via That eliminated a large part of the salary she received for each ticket that fans spent outside the theater.
The consequences of the release of the above blockbuster movie are truly troubling, and this is shedding light on how the booming era of movie streaming services is changing the way we enjoy cinema. how, as well as how it affects the people who make movies.
Normally, most film contracts that a company signs with actors are negotiated around box office revenue numbers, and based on that number, additional compensation is paid to the participating actors. In the past, this method was extremely effective for both actors and studios. Film studios can save a large amount of initial investment without fear that if the film becomes a flop, they will lose capital. Meanwhile, actors, directors and producers can look at box office receipts to know exactly how much their work is worth, and be compensated accordingly.
But when streaming services take over, that number no longer makes sense. Actors and filmmakers who work with Netflix, for example, are often paid a fixed fee, according to an entertainment lawyer. If their bargaining ability is good, artists can also earn additional monthly or quarterly remuneration. But this way of negotiating is completely different from the old way based on box office revenue. According to this lawyer, normally Netflix will pay the agreed remuneration within 8 quarters, i.e. 2 years from the official release of the work, while Apple pays the actors within just over 12 months. month.
Because the movie market is constantly changing, part of the job of lawyers now when negotiating contracts is to “guess what the deal is going to be for this project.”
Therefore, the way salaries are negotiated also changes very quickly. According to Johansson’s lawsuit, the deal related to the Black Widow movie was completed in 2017, before Disney+ was even announced, and Johansson’s legal team probably did not think they needed to negotiate at that time. there are deals around this movie being streamed online. And so Scarlett Johansson’s contract when playing Black Widow clearly stated that this film would be “released in theaters”, but at that time the simple understanding was that when released, the film would only be released in theaters without being released. posted on any other platform, an implicit understanding throughout the entertainment industry.
Nowadays, actors all understand that they have to negotiate their remuneration when the movies they star in are posted on online streaming platforms. But measuring the success of a movie on Netflix or Apple TV+ or Disney+ is much more difficult than looking at box office revenue. All online movie streaming services keep viewership data as well as revenue from a specific movie secret. Publicly available data is often insufficient in terms of context to determine the success of a work.
Entertainment industry lawyers expect transparency from any online movie streaming service, not just Disney. Without this metric, it is difficult for actors and creative people to negotiate effectively in a rapidly changing market context.
Another thing to keep in mind is that each individual movie streaming service has very different and vague metrics. If box office revenue can describe in detail the level of success of a movie based on the number of tickets sold compared to production costs, then with streaming, no one knows how to measure its success: New viewership? Number of people registering new accounts? How many people watch the same movie over and over again?
Currently, the process of negotiating film contracts is no longer the same for every actor. Streaming services often accept more money for a talent if they believe the product created can attract more subscribers to the service. This itself is also causing many people to accept making a work that is only released on a streaming platform, like Netflix and Apple TV+ are doing.
