We stand with Scarlett!

by Nathaniel R

As you may have heard, Scarlett Johansson has sued Disney for breach of contract. She may have lost up to $50 million in bonuses on Black Widow. The very simplest way to explain it is that expensive movie stars (and some key directors) tend to earn "points" based on box office performance. A-listers like Johansson can reap hefty sums each time a movie passes certain agreed-upon thresholds. Disney, eager to beef up their Disney+ service, didn't regenotiate with her about her Black Widow contract before opting to place it on their streaming service for $30, thereby undermining its traditional box office and cutting Scarlett out of the significant $ of Disney+ purchases...

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Thoughts I had... while staring at the "Black Widow" posters

by Nathaniel R

You can hear that, right? It's a little bit like a loud whisper rather than the standard deafening shouts of mid May but summer movie season is calling. What that will mean this year is anyone's guess with the pandemic having wreaked havoc on viewing habits, moviegoing, and theatrical releases. But we've been inundated with new trailers and now we're getting the usual promotions of character posters. Hollywood hopes you'll go back to the movies. (Or do they, since they're so obsessed with building their streaming services). So let's talk the long delayed not-quite-upon-us Black Widow which hits in July by way of its character posters. 

Whenever we're short on time we like to do these 'thoughts i had' and present them unedited as they come though these posters are kind of plain so it's not giving us much to think about...

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On the Globes cancellation

You probably heard the news today that NBC has cancelled the Golden Globes for January 2022. The past couple of days have been a flurry of stars and distributors and PR firms condemning the Globes and boycotting them. Or 'stepping back from' to use Scarlett Johansson's gentler euphemism. But we find the timing of this sudden wave of condemnation to be suspicious and more than a little hypocritical of the industry given their own ethics problems and systemic racism and sexism. First and foremost, it's all happening three whole months after the Golden Globes exposé in the Los Angeles Times which touched a nerve with its revelation that the organization, which is made up of 87 people, had no black members. (Exacerbating that particular problem -- though nobody likes to try to understand structural problems as it's easier to simply condemn and move on -- is that they only allow one member to represent each "foreign" country and many aren't as diverse as the US; that 'per country' rule, at least, will have to go.)

Did Hollywood rise up against the Globes after that expose? Nope. They went right on courting their favor until awards season had entirely played itself out! There were awards to be won and films and tv shows to promote. No stars boycotted the ceremony and neither did any studios. But now, everyone is in the clear for another year. Distributors don't have to think about campaigning for awards or promoting their films and television shows in that particular way for a while now...

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Showbiz History: "It" girls and Scarlett Johansson's first big win

Happy President's Day. Aren't you glad an actual adult is in the White House again? Anyway, here are 5 random things that happened on this day, February 15th, in showbiz history

1927 "It" starring Clara Bow is released. Did it create the lingo of "It girl" like Gaslight spawned the term "gaslighting"? I don't know. I'm not a linguistic historian. If you are, do tell... 

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Showbiz History: Noni shoplifts and Jennifer Connelly & Regina Hall are born

10 (gulp) random things that happened on this day, December 12th, in showbiz history...

1917 Father Edward Flanagan founds Boys Town in Nebraska, a home for at-risk kids. Twenty-one years later the movie version will arrive winning Spencer Tracy an Oscar as Father Flanagan. We talked about this movie quite a bit this summer. 

1941 Universal's horror picture The Wolf Man opens in movie theaters with early giants like Lon Chaney Jr in furry face plus Claude Raines, Bela Lugosi, Ralph Bellamy, and Maria Ouspenskaya in support.

Star Trek, Winona Ryder shoplifting, Jennifer Connelly, Regina Hall, and more after the jump...

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