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Comment by calmd | Hacker News Reader

This makes sense. A lot of stars expect a cut of box office revenues and negotiate that in. But the negotiations happened probably prior to the pandemic and the new situation probably was unthinkable.

Also the box office in general has been destroyed recently because of the pandemic. What would have likely been $+150M opening weekends and close to $1B totals revenue (or even more) are reduced to fractions of that.

EDIT: Even worse, it was actually to be released in May 2020, thus the negotiations for salary were likely done in 2017/2018 or possibly earlier. Disney+ wasn't even announced back then.

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Not hard at all, actually. All stars have very savvy agents and lawyers, and the movie industry has always been a cutthroat business. Don't let the glitz and glamor blind you to the fact that it is an industry which selects for people who work very long hours and drive hard bargains, at every level.

Every professional contract I've ever seen contemplates expansion into future media and markets; it's a technology driven business that has to follow customers to where they are going, and industry lawyers are fully aware that if studios or production companies had the option, most of them would happily relocate to the Moon or Mars to avoid paying out, while maintaining an office on earth to litigate their own copyright interests.

Wasn't it Lucas or someone who was famous for negotiating ongoing rights / IP ownership, when the studio (in retrospect) drastically undervalued them?

Sylvester Stallone was one of the first actors to negotiate a fraction of gross revenue and rights (for Rocky).

edit: I heared the above several times over the years, but it appears it may not be true:

https://www.businessinsider.com/sylvester-stallone-on-never-...

Alec Guinness made a lot of money by negotiating a percentage instead of a fee.

> Wasn't it Lucas or someone who was famous for negotiating ongoing rights / IP ownership, when the studio (in retrospect) drastically undervalued them?

IIRC, it was merchandising rights. Sales of the Star Wars action figures were huge, and my understanding kind of unprecedented.

> All stars have very savvy agents and lawyers...it is an industry which selects for people who work very long hours and drive hard bargains, at every level.

When I was in law school at UCLA, I considered going into entertainment law. I attended a presentation by a famous entertainment lawyer who said that the lawyers in show business are not actually the most talented — unlike other industries, the big players don't hire primarily from Harvard, Yale, etc.

Instead, the halls of Sony Pictures or Fox are lined with graduates from second- and third-tier law schools who had a foot in the door because of a family connection.

The reason he gave for this is that entertainment law is not as complex as other areas of law, so the basic contract work can be done by a not-stellar lawyer. This was a 15 years ago, and perhaps times have changed. But I'm sure that family/industry connections are still an important part of getting these jobs.

Definitely true. And showbiz negotiation is very much about strategy and chutzpah rather than pure legal acuity - I think the smartest minds go into business law or practice in fields like insurance.

But I do think entertainment lawyers are still very good at what they do. If you look at a popular reference like Mark Litwak's Dealmaking in the Film and Television Industry there's a heavy emphasis on taking the longest possible view because big openings and box office receipts are only tiny part of the overall revenue stream, and the real money is in syndication, foreign sales, merchandise etc. etc.

> But the negotiations happened probably prior to the pandemic and the new situation probably was unthinkable.

Apparently Warner dealt with this unexpected issue differently:

> WarnerMedia chose to renegotiate many of its talent contracts that, like Ms. Johansson’s deal with Marvel, were tied to box-office performance. Warner Bros. paid more than $200 million to talent as part of the amended agreements.

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