Links: Sally Sings, Scarlett Settles, and Sorkin Speaks

• /Film If you're in Los Angeles, there's a live-to-film concert of Nightmare Before Christmas coming on October 29th and 31st. Billie Eilish will be doing "Sally's Song"
• Vulture Best Actress will cause even bigger than usual stan-wars this season
• Vanity Fair Aaron Sorkin finally breaks his silence about his long working relationship with disgraced bully producer Scott Rudin

• Letterboxd an interview with Melanie Lynskey for her new film Lady of the Manor
• Tom & Lorenzo Maggie & Jake at the Lost Daughter premiere at NYFF
• The Guardian why haven't there been more black queer love stories post Moonlight?
• The Times Jake Gyllenhaal interview
• Uproxx a really fun perceptive review of Venom: Let There Be Carnage
• Variety a report on the "Power of Women" dinner in Beverly Hills
• FSR a brief history of Marcia Lucas and Star Wars

Finally... According to Variety Scarlett Johansson and Disney have settled their Black Widow dispute out of court AND Disney has added that Tower of Terror starring Scarjo is back on. This all obviously means that Scarlett was paid handsomely enough for everyone to make nice again. Deadline, in a follow-up piece, suggests she received an additional $40 million for Black Widow. Good for her again for reminding the mighty Mouse House that a contract is a contract and they can't treat people this way. Especially not people with the means to fight back so Scarlett did everyone in Hollywood a service. (The millions of obnoxious people calling her greedy online should burn their latest paycheck without cashing it -- just one to put their money where their mouth is -- and then clock how they feel about not being paid for their work as promised). The new streaming frontier has thrown Hollywood economics into disarray and that's particularly true for the talent. They used to make lots of money in residuals for example... sort of an accidental pension plan but streamers have not been structured to pay people more if their show happens to be a success (unless it's a long running tv series of course and they need to renew contracts). Eventually all this will be ironed out but until then its safe to assume that the corporations are not willingly sharing the new wealth since they're not yet expected to. Expect a lot more battles over paydays and, one assumes, the actors union getting a little more wise to the new streaming economy, contractually speaking.

We stand with Scarlett!

by Nathaniel R

As you may have heard, Scarlett Johansson has sued Disney for breach of contract. She may have lost up to $50 million in bonuses on Black Widow. The very simplest way to explain it is that expensive movie stars (and some key directors) tend to earn "points" based on box office performance. A-listers like Johansson can reap hefty sums each time a movie passes certain agreed-upon thresholds. Disney, eager to beef up their Disney+ service, didn't regenotiate with her about her Black Widow contract before opting to place it on their streaming service for $30, thereby undermining its traditional box office and cutting Scarlett out of the significant $ of Disney+ purchases...

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What did you see this week?

Been back to the movie theaters yet? We've been going regularly again (huzzah!) but this week we skipped the new releases and took in a special one-night screening of The Graduate (1967) for the Movies with MZS at IFC Center. Next month he's showing Body Heat (1981) which is so perfect (you know we're fans) so if you're in NYC and you've never seen it now is your chance to see Kathleen Turner's jaw-dropping debut on the big screen.

Anyway. Here is the chart. What did you see this past week/weekend?

Weekend Box Office July 16th-18th 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE	PLATFORM TITLES
Black Widow	Pig

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Thoughts I had... while staring at the "Black Widow" posters

by Nathaniel R

You can hear that, right? It's a little bit like a loud whisper rather than the standard deafening shouts of mid May but summer movie season is calling. What that will mean this year is anyone's guess with the pandemic having wreaked havoc on viewing habits, moviegoing, and theatrical releases. But we've been inundated with new trailers and now we're getting the usual promotions of character posters. Hollywood hopes you'll go back to the movies. (Or do they, since they're so obsessed with building their streaming services). So let's talk the long delayed not-quite-upon-us Black Widow which hits in July by way of its character posters. 

Whenever we're short on time we like to do these 'thoughts i had' and present them unedited as they come though these posters are kind of plain so it's not giving us much to think about...

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Marvel Cinematic Universe - New tease and theatrical dates

by Nathaniel R

Marvel Studios released a big "back to the movies" video to celebrate the communal experience of movie-going. You get tiny slivers of their past "phases" and sneak peaks of all four films coming in 2021 except the Christmas-time Spider-Man (so we'll assume there isn't yet footage available). The most "exciting" of which for all it's 'what will this be like?' mystery is The Eternals directed by freshly double-Oscared Chloe Zhao from. We get some wide shots but no glimpses of the action except Angelina Jolie raising a sword. It will be good to have her back on the big screen where she belongs! The "tease" and release dates after the jump...

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