SHANG-CHI's Success May Have Given Scarlett Johansson Leverage In BLACK WIDOW Lawsuit

SHANG-CHI's Success May Have Given Scarlett Johansson Leverage In BLACK WIDOW Lawsuit

We recently learned that Disney and Scarlett Johansson agreed to settle their lawsuit, and it's now come to light that the success of Shang-Chi may have given the Black Widow star the leverage she needed.

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By MarkCassidy - Oct 04, 2021 07:10 AM EST
Filed Under: Black Widow

Last week, we found out that Disney and Scarlett Johansson had come to a settlement agreement over the Black Widow star's breach of contract lawsuit, and there's a chance the success of another Marvel Studios movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, may have played a part.

Johansson claimed that Disney basically decided to sacrifice Black Widow's full box office potential by sending the Cate Shortland-directed MCU adventure to streaming and theaters simultaneously, and the fact that Shang-Chi - which skipped a Disney+ release for a theatrical-only run - performed so well may have given the actress the leverage she needed to force a settlement.

According to industry insider Matthew Belloni (via Puck News), “It didn’t help Disney’s overall cause that Shang-Chi, a ‘lesser’ Marvel title starring a largely unknown actor that was released over the usually dormant Labor Day weekend, has stormed past Black Widow at the box office. The difference? Shang-Chi was a theatrical exclusive, of course."

It's certainly a valid point. While Black Widow still did pretty well all things considered, the movie would almost certainly have grossed more and not suffered such a massive second-week drop if audiences were unable to stream it from home. The argument that a film featuring Natasha Romanoff should hypothetically perform better than the big-screen debut of a lesser-known character may also hold some weight, but MCU fans' excitement to get a glimpse into the future of this shared world (Black Widow was a prequel, after all) needs to be taken into account.

What do you guys make of this? Do you agree with Belloni's assessment? Drop us a comment down below.

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bobevanz
bobevanz - 10/4/2021, 7:46 AM
Like it or not, you need theaters if you want to keep watching these movies lol GG hedgies
Origame
Origame - 10/4/2021, 10:01 AM
@bobevanz - yeah. They're just too expensive to make.
mastakilla39
mastakilla39 - 10/4/2021, 11:39 AM
@bobevanz - maybe if they shared the streaming gross and views they won't need theaters. I'm interested in knowing if the shareholders who give them money to make these big budget films are happy with its pvod gross and new subscribers. Netflix's are and they make equally expensive films as Disney.
GhostDog
GhostDog - 10/4/2021, 7:46 AM
santoanderson
santoanderson - 10/4/2021, 7:50 AM
The hybrid day-and-date theater/streaming strategy has been a disaster for the domestic box office. Just look at that Sopranos movie. Warner Bros conservatively expected $10 million its opening weekend, but it only made $5 million.
Conquistador
Conquistador - 10/4/2021, 7:57 AM
Chapek's reaction to the lawsuit when them numbers kept on coming in.


to be fair it was an expensive experiment in an uncertain time, as right as Scarlet was to challenge them, they had a business to run, but they should have been more transparent. Good for Scarlet.
OmegaDaGrodd
OmegaDaGrodd - 10/4/2021, 7:58 AM
Of course Black Widow would've made much more without streaming. You simply can't go day and date with your biggest properties during a pandemic.

Either delay the release further into the year, do day and date with a sizable payment to top talent up front, or delay the streaming release for a couple weeks to get maximum punch at the BO.
Kozmik
Kozmik - 10/4/2021, 9:45 AM
@OmegaDaGrodd - Having seen 'Black Widow' in the theater, delaying the release (in hindsight) wasn't an option. It felt dated, which makes sense when you take into account that it's been delayed three or four times before its simultaneous release.

No, 'Black Widow' should have never been released at the same time as it was shown on Disney+.

As it can be assumed, doing so may not have hurt the initial box office, though it took the wind from the sails in week two.
Neutronbomb
Neutronbomb - 10/4/2021, 8:00 AM
They never stopped to consider that Shang Chi was a much better movie in addition to not being a prequel for a dead character.
MasterMix
MasterMix - 10/4/2021, 8:05 AM
I can't hear the word leverage without being immediately reminded of Battlefield Earth.
LSHF
LSHF - 10/4/2021, 3:43 PM
@MasterMix - That leverage saying in the film was the only thing I liked about it.
PantherKing
PantherKing - 10/4/2021, 8:09 AM
I remember when people claimed that this won’t prove Scarlett’s point hahaha
TheUnworthyThor
TheUnworthyThor - 10/4/2021, 8:16 AM
Obviously. It was a big blunder on Disney’s part. There is obviously money to be made of theatrical exclusive windows that cannot be recouped elsewhere. I actually think Hollywood is going to go back to a longer window once the pandemic is really behind us, 2023 maybe. Streaming services are sold on exclusive series and movies (and being the eventual home of theatrical movies). They are not going to be sold on being the hybrid host of movies playing elsewhere that you are taking away prestige from anyway.

You get us twice over when you people want to see Shang-Chi so they have to go to the theater and they want to see WandaVision so they subscribe to your service. Hopefully some of the other streaming services really catch on and we start getting more premium content from both directions.
Kozmik
Kozmik - 10/4/2021, 9:33 AM
@TheUnworthyThor - My thing is – and I don't know why this is a mystery/hard to understand but if you put out a movie – virtually any movie – on streaming at the same time as it's in theaters it no longer becomes an event.

And there's a ripple effect in that people who subscribe to whatever streaming service can see if for free while those that pay attention to such things lose interest in whatever movie because it can be caught for free whenever.

It's a strategy for failure.
Itwasme
Itwasme - 10/4/2021, 9:57 AM
@Kozmik - long-term it's a strategy for failure, but when you have such a large percentage of the population not comfortable going to the theaters, it helped elevate BW to be the #2 movie overall for the year.

When you step back and look at the overall industry, it's hard to draw conclusions it hurt BO, in fact it looks more like net new.

Any statistic you pull, isn't relevant across the industry. People point to the big weekend to weekend drop BW had vs Shang-Chi, but Tenet and F9 who had theater only releases faced similar drop BW, and streaming movies like Jungle Cruise and Cruella has similar drops to Shang-Chi. There just isn't any causation one can draw.
Kozmik
Kozmik - 10/4/2021, 10:12 AM
@Itwasme - Exactly! Though 'elevated' is the wrong choice of words because based upon it's first week of returns if 'Black Widow' had an exclusive theatrical window it would have likely been the most profitable movie of 2021.

This is what Shang-Chi proves, namely that even a character no one has heard of (and that's hyperbolic, though not by a lot) is given the space to perform and comes from a studio like Marvel it will likely be a huge success.

And the examples you use to illustrate your point, don't.

For instance, whatever one can say about F9 a worldwide cume of just over $700 M ($716,588,905) quickly silences the naysayers.

'Tenet' is another matter entirely because that movie was too confusing for it's own good and I'd argue that even sans a pandemic it would have underperformed.
Itwasme
Itwasme - 10/4/2021, 10:30 AM
@Kozmik - all movies around that time were experiencing big drop, regardless of release strategy. That likely points to a skittish public. The people who felt comfortable going went, but it was a small percentage. Later in the pandemic, things began to stabilize and you saw films having far less drops.

The point is, if you want to draw causation, you have to prove its true across the board, and BW is the only Disney film with a day-and-date strategy to face that drop. If it's not true across the board, its not a causation.
Kozmik
Kozmik - 10/4/2021, 8:21 AM
Hate to say I told you so (and if this isn't an inditement of Warner Bros ridiculous simultaneous release strategy I don't know what is), though a lot of us did.
MadThanos
MadThanos - 10/4/2021, 8:48 AM
380 million is a success on a theater exclusive release?
OmegaDaGrodd
OmegaDaGrodd - 10/4/2021, 8:56 AM
@MadThanos - Yes, especially during a pandemic when most movies couldn't even hope to sniff those numbers

But a better way to look at it is to show that it's already surpassed the 2.5x budget threshhold for turning a profit, so at a budget of $150 mil, SC has already entered profit territory. Most films don't turn a profit until taking home releases and merchandising into consideration, so SC isn't just a success by pandemic standards, it's a success by business standards as a whole
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