Scarlett Johansson’s lawyer slams Disney for ‘misogynistic attack’ on the actress… after the entertainment giant tried to shift her case to arbitration
Scarlett Johansson’s lawyer shared a sharply worded statement on Saturday morning attacking Disney for a late-night filing to move his client’s lawsuit to arbitration.
John Berlinski, Johansson’s lead lawyer, said the entertainment giant was trying to ‘hide its misconduct’ from the public via arbitration.
He also criticized Disney’s initial eyebrow-raising response to his client’s lawsuit as a ‘misogynistic attack.’
Not holding back: The lead lawyer for Scarlett Johansson, 36, lashed out at Disney’s ‘misogynistic attack’ against the actress on Saturday and fired back at the company’s moves to send her lawsuit to arbitration; seen in February 2020
He was responding to a motion the Walt Disney Company filed in LA Super Court late on Friday night by the company’s outside lawyers Daniel Petrocelli, Leah Godesky and Tim Heafner of O’Melveny & Myers LLP.
Disney was urging the judge overseeing the case to move it to private arbitration, Deadline reported.
‘Periwinkle agreed that all claims “arising out of, in connection with, or relating to” Scarlett Johansson’s acting services for Black Widow would be submitted to confidential, binding arbitration in New York,’ read the motion.
Periwinkle is the company through which Johansson’s acting services were contracted.
Conflict: Late Friday night, Disney’s lawyers filed to move her suit to arbitration. She’s suing Disney for giving Marvel’s Black Widow a simultaneous Disney+ and theatrical release, which she says deprived her of bonuses based on theatrical benchmarks; still from Black Widow
Disney’s lawyers continued, arguing that the contract required Johansson’s complaints to be handled in arbitration.
‘Whether Periwinkle’s claims against Disney fall within the scope of that agreement is not a close call: Periwinkle’s interference and inducement claims are premised on Periwinkle’s allegation that Marvel breached the contract’s requirement that any release of Black Widow include a “wide theatrical release” on “no less than 1,500 screens,’ they continued.
‘The plain and expansive language of the arbitration agreement easily encompasses Periwinkle’s Complaint.’
The motion then took a more antagonistic approach reminiscent of early responses to Johansson’s lawsuit and called the actress legal strategy ‘gamesmanship.’
‘In a futile effort to evade this unavoidable result (and generate publicity through a public filing), Periwinkle excluded Marvel as a party to this lawsuit —substituting instead its parent company Disney under contract-interference theories,’ it read. ‘But longstanding principles do not permit such gamesmanship.’
The motion revealed that ‘on August 10, 2021, Marvel and Disney served on Periwinkle a demand for confidential arbitration in New York,’ which Disney claimed Johansson’s lawyers haven’t yet responded to.
Sharp words: Disney’s lawyers called her suit an example of ‘gamesmanship’ and said her contract required arbitration. They also claimed that she’s receiving compensation for Disney+ views; seen in January 2020
Disney is now seeking to have a hearing into the matter of moving the case to arbitration on October 15.
The media giant also fought back against Johansson’s claim that she was promised ‘a release that is exclusive to movie theatres.’
‘Although Marvel and Disney share Periwinkle’s frustration with the challenges associated with releasing films during an ever-shifting public-health crisis, Periwinkle’s claims that Marvel breached the Agreement and Disney induced that breach or otherwise interfered with the Agreement have no merit,’ the motion continued.
‘There is nothing in the Agreement requiring that a “wide theatrical release” also be an “exclusive” theatrical release.’
The motion appears to argue that the contract didn’t even require theatrical distribution in the first place.
‘The contract does not mandate theatrical distribution — let alone require that any such distribution be exclusive,’ Disney’s lawyers wrote.
Anemic profits: Although Johansson may get pay based on Disney+ rentals, the rental price would have been cheaper for families than going to a theater, which may still cut into her earnings; featured with Florence Pugh (R) in Black Widow
‘Moreover, the contract expressly provides that any theatrical-distribution obligations are satisfied by distribution on “no less than 1500 screens.” And even though Black Widow’s release coincided with a global public-health crisis, Marvel made good on its promises.’
The lawyers argued that, contrary to Johansson’s claims, Marvel did discuss the possibility of a hybrid theatrical and digital release with her prior to Black Widow’s premiere.
‘Marvel discussed the hybrid-release-pattern decision with Johansson in spring 2021, as the parties were conferring regarding the Picture’s release date,’ they claimed.
They also claimed that the actress would be getting digital receipts added to her box office receipts to help calculate her potential performance bonuses.
‘Marvel has assured Johansson that she will be credited with 100% of the Premier Access and PEHV receipts for purposes of the box-office thresholds used to calculate any additional compensation — even though Marvel has no obligation under the Agreement to do so.’
However, the statement elides the fact that people were able to spend significantly less by renting Black Widow on Disney+.
Comparison: Disney claimed that Black Widow did better in its opening weekend than some Marvel movies, including Ant-Man and Guardians Of The Galaxy, in an attempt to downplay Johansson’s complaints; seen with Colin Jost in February 2020
The film was offered for the price of a subscription plus an additional $30 to rent the film, but the flat fee would have been a significant discount for families or groups of people who watched it together, rather than buying separate tickets at a theater.
In order to fight Johansson’s claims that the move to Disney+ hurt Black Widow’s profits, Disney added box office figures with streaming revenue to claim that the movie earned ‘more than that of many other Marvel Cinematic Universe films, including Thor: The Dark World; Ant-Man; Ant-Man And The Wasp; and Guardians Of The Galaxy’ made in their opening weekends.
Johansson’s lead lawyer John Berlinski attacked the filing in a statement from later on Saturday morning.
‘After initially responding to this litigation with a misogynistic attack against Scarlett Johansson, Disney is now, predictably, trying to hide its misconduct in a confidential arbitration,’ he said.
‘Why is Disney so afraid of litigating this case in public?’ he wondered aloud in response to the company’s push for arbitration.
‘Because it knows that Marvel’s promises to give Black Widow a typical theatrical release “like its other films” had everything to do with guaranteeing that Disney wouldn’t cannibalize box office receipts in order to boost Disney+ subscriptions,’ he claimed.
‘Yet that is exactly what happened — and we look forward to presenting the overwhelming evidence that proves it.’
Cannibalism: Johansson’s lawyer claimed Disney promised a ‘typical theatrical release “like it’s other films”‘ to ease his client into thinking it wouldn’t cannibalize it’s box office with Disney+, even though he argues it eventually did just that; still from Black Widow
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