Actress Scarlett Johansson says Disney’s response to her July 29 breach-of-contract lawsuit was “misogynistic,” and she’s accusing the company of trying to move talks “behind closed doors” to salvage its image.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, Johansson is suing the studio over its decision to release her latest Marvel film, “Black Widow,” to its streaming platform, Disney Plus, at the same time as theaters. Her team claims she had assurances from Marvel executives that the movie would receive a theatrical-only rollout. By shifting to a hybrid model, she claims the studio undercut the film’s box office earnings, depriving her of compensation she should have received based on the deal she negotiated to receive a percentage of ticket sales.
“Disney intentionally induced Marvel’s breach of the agreement, without justification, in order to prevent Ms. Johansson from realizing the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel,” Johansson’s complaint asserted.
In response, Disney called the suit “sad and distressing,” claiming Johansson showed “callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Then, late Friday night, the company filed a motion in a Los Angeles Superior Court to force Johansson’s suit into private arbitration.
“The plain and expansive language of the arbitration agreement easily encompasses [Johansson’s] Complaint,” the motion stated. “In a futile effort to evade this unavoidable result (and generate publicity through a public filing), Johansson’ excluded Marvel as a party to this lawsuit––substituting instead its parent company Disney under contract-interference theories. But longstanding principles do not permit such gamesmanship.”
The midnight filing also emphasized the pandemic and not a desire to attract new subscribers to Disney’s streaming platform as the reason behind “Black Widow’s” simultaneous release approach.
Said the motion:
“While [Johansson] tries to call that unambiguous contract language into question by citing a pre-pandemic, 2019 e-mail by a Marvel executive the communication merely confirmed Marvel’s intent to stand by the contract’s ‘wide theatrical release’ provision –– which Marvel ultimately did, notwithstanding the dramatically changed circumstances of a 2020-2021 global pandemic.”
Now Johansson’s team is firing back.
Her lead attorney, John Berlinski, said in a statement released to Deadline Saturday that Disney’s comments represented a “misogynistic attack” against the highest-earning actress in the world. He added, “Disney is now, predictably, trying to hide its misconduct in a confidential arbitration.”
Berlinski’s statement continued:
“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. Why is Disney so afraid of litigating this case in public? 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. Yet that is exactly what happened – and we look forward to presenting the overwhelming evidence that proves it.”