MCUniverse: Into the Spider-Thread

[sifth]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

I mean, the reasons entertainers are paid exorbitantly more than educators in a capitalist or even capitalist/socialist society are obvious.  Let's not pretend that's ever going to fundamentally change.

Because our society is brainwashed into thinking they're gods would be my guess and it's just embarrassing, that a person who wears a cape and pretends to be a hero, can get more fame and recognition than people who actually contribute to solving real human problems in society. This whole chat is making me think of a bit from Key and Peele, that was a parody of a world, where teachers were actually respected.  

 

[john]

The reason teachers aren’t paid much is because, with the greatest of respect, a lot of people can do their job, given the same education and training as them. Same with all the editors, engineers, prop guys or whatever that worked on Black Widow. They probably worked harder and deserve a share of the profits more than Johansson.

But very few people can do what SJ does, and I don’t mean acting. She makes multiple millions for her employers. That might have a lot more to do with luck than anything else but it is what it is, she’s in a position where she can charge a lot for her work. I don’t think it’s much different than having a great idea for an app, a successful patent or 20 years experience running hedge funds.

[JGP]

4 hours ago, sifth said:

Because our society is brainwashed into thinking they're gods would be my guess and it's just embarrassing, that a person who wears a cape and pretends to be a hero, can get more fame and recognition than people who actually contribute to solving real human problems in society. This whole chat is making me think of a bit from Key and Peele, that was a parody of a world, where teachers were actually respected.  

 

Well, it’s lucrative industry [with no small risk] and big/bigger stars have leverage at the bargaining table.

I don’t think most actors get bonus on box office deals however, and discounting merchandizing, selling to streamers, channels etc, if a movie makes a billion+ world wide just off box office I have zero problems with stars, particularly shrewd ones, enforcing their contractual cut. 

It’s also ok to be bent about how much some of them make.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

 

 

 

[Heartofice]

Most actors in the industry earn peanuts, and really its just a handful who make millions or who get massive levels of fame. Thats just how it works, their faces and skills are seen as rare and also lucrative so they are compensated handsomely, but the flip side is that only a tiny minority of them get that level of income. 

I guess if there was a teacher who was seen as so exceptional that being taught by them that you would be guaranteed to earn millions in the future then they would also be raking in the cash. Doesn't work like that unfortunately. 

Anyway, no problem with stars suing studios for more money, of course studios are trying to diddle their staff and keep as much money as possible.

[Werthead]

I think actors are also looking at streaming and comparing it to what happened to musicians when Spotify and other platforms came along. Successful, popular musicians who made a reasonable living from CD sales suddenly found themselves making less than 1% of the same income on songs being streamed many hundreds or thousands more times than they sold, which pushed them into having to tour all the time just to keep a roof over their head, which would have been kind of problematic in past decades (the Beatles, REM and some other major artists had their imperial periods of making their best music when they weren't touring and could focus on songwriting and being in the studio for 2+ years on end; that can't happen now unless you're an already-established mega-successful artist). With the sheer volume of TV shows and movies being made and the sheer volume of actors being churned through, there is a feeling that actors may not be considered as worth the money as they once were.

There is of course a yawning gap between "can no longer make a living" and "owning twelve houses on four different continents" and a lot of the top-earning actors are earning obscene amounts of money, but they can see the mistakes the music industry made and don't want to repeat them.  

We should also remember that Disney-Marvel has form for this. They paid well below market rate for their main actors to start with and it took Robert Downey Jr. organising everyone and suggesting he wouldn't sign a new contract after the massive success of The Avengers and hinting the other actors would follow for them to calm down and start paying reasonable rates, reportedly with Kevin Feige's support (since he wasn't in full control back then). That penny-pinching attitude still seems to be there.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

7 hours ago, Werthead said:

We should also remember that Disney-Marvel has form for this. They paid well below market rate for their main actors to start with and it took Robert Downey Jr. organising everyone and suggesting he wouldn't sign a new contract after the massive success of The Avengers and hinting the other actors would follow for them to calm down and start paying reasonable rates, reportedly with Kevin Feige's support (since he wasn't in full control back then). That penny-pinching attitude still seems to be there.

Remember this is the company that were on the good side of an incredibly lopsided deal with Sony for Spider-Man and they still wanted more. I wonder if the actors get a piece of the merchandise that has their face on it.

As I recall, RDJ got signed to the first Iron Man movie and got paid a few hundred thousand for it. So when Iron man became the biggest solo film of phase 1, he was able to renegotiate a deal that not only paid him more but also gave him a percentage. When The Avengers hit big, He became the highest paid actor in Hollywood.

So this is all Disneys fault.