Not many in Hollywood have the drive and means to take on Disney, but when they do, hell hath no fury. Will Marvel’s Black Widow actress Scarlett Johansson’s recently filed lawsuit make waves throughout the movie business?

The latest move in the streaming wars came from Black Widow Marvel actress, Scarlett Johansson, who back in July, sued Disney, alleging the movie studio breached her contract by releasing Black Widow in theaters and on Disney+ at the same time.

Originally scheduled for March 2020, Black Widow‘s release changed several times because of the COVID-19 pandemic, ultimately debuting earlier this summer in theaters and the Disney+ platform for a $30 premiere on-demand fee. With $60 million coming from Disney+ alone, Black Widow earned about $218 million in its opening weekend, which makes Johansson’s recent lawsuit all the more curious.

According to the recently filed lawsuit, Johansson alleges she had a contractual promise that Black Widow would be a “theatrical release” only and her salary would be “based largely on box office receipts.” Instead, the lawsuit alleges that Disney tried to instead, use Black Widow to grow its subscriber base, migrating it to Disney+, with reckless disregard to Johansson’s earnings.

“It’s no secret that Disney is releasing films like Black Widow directly onto Disney+ to increase subscribers and thereby boost the company’s stock price — and that it’s hiding behind COVID-19 as a pretext to do so,” Johnasson’s attorney John Berlinski said.

“But ignoring the contracts of the artists responsible for the success of its films in furtherance of this short-sighted strategy violates their rights and we look forward to proving as much in court. This will surely not be the last case where Hollywood talent stands up to Disney and makes it clear that, whatever the company may pretend, it has a legal obligation to honor its contracts.”

“Nobody in any field of work should fall victim to surprise reductions in expected compensation,” said SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris. “It is unreasonable and unjust. Disney and other content companies are doing very well and can certainly live up to their obligations to compensate the performers whose art and artistry are responsible for the corporation’s profits.”

Johansson’s lawsuit was an incredibly rare move that we’ve seen throughout Hollywood, as Disney remains to be the industry’s most powerful studio.

“Johansson’s lawsuit represents everything that’s going on in the business right now as it shifts to streaming,” says Matt Belloni, a founding partner of the new outlet Puck News, author of a newsletter on the entertainment industry, and former editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter. “The battle lines are being drawn over how stars are going to be paid in that new economy, and this is the biggest flashpoint for that.”

Of course, Disney has responded claiming there is “no merit whatsoever” to Johansson’s allegations.

With the shift to digital streaming, the question becomes whether this type of deal makes financial sense for studios, and whether it will make sense for them to continue dropping major blockbusters on these platforms after the pandemic has hit. Hollywood product placement executive, Lorenzo Rusin, whose 25+ year experience placing brands and products in major films like Coming 2 America, 007, and Mission Impossible, says that this is the future of media.

“Now, every contract we will start to see will be negotiated with the option of streaming,” Rusin told PopWrapped. “Our industry has definitely experienced a transformation, where marketing and branding is now immortal in cyberspace. It’s really a great question to ask, because today with the ways in which we are absorbing content, primarily through these digital streaming platforms, brands now have the ability to ‘live’ forever. Brands are forever immortalized in these works; a simple placement is all it takes…but it needs to be tasteful.”

“All [the lawsuit] is going to do is slam the door in terms of box office points,” adds Jeff Bock, a senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations. “It’s going to be one final payout for Disney, and they’re going to say, ‘Never again.’ I don’t think there’s much conversation beyond that, honestly.”

Historically, movie stars’ compensation has been tied to box office revenue for decades, with A-list actors/actresses like Johansson guaranteed a share of the film’s profits. However, as we’ve made the move into the digital landscape and metaverse, streaming platforms have changed the meaning and effect that film today has on consumer behavior.

When Netflix first came to power, these A-list talent have made massive deals up-front in exchange for forgoing theatrical releases. But Johansson’s lawsuit evokes ongoing turmoil that companies like Warner Bros. have faced, after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the studio to migrate its entire 2021 catalog of films to both Disney+ and HBO Max simultaneously.

However, Johansson alleges that this move was done purposefully to avoid paying out monies owed under contract to her, to maximize Disney’s own profit.

“The complaint suggests that there were efforts on Scarlett’s side to reach some kind of resolution, but those efforts were not reciprocated. And that’s surprising,” says Jeff Finkelstein, a partner at the entertainment law film Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein & Lezcano. “After they made Scarlett’s deal, Disney did go on to make deals that contemplated the possibility of [movies] streaming on their own service, and paying bonuses that were otherwise based on box office. Assuming this is the case, it’s strange that they would not have gone back to Scarlett’s representatives and tried to work something out in good faith.”

Days after Johansson filed her lawsuit, TV actor Gerard Butler also filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County for $10 million against the producers of his 2013 film, “Olympus Has Fallen,” claiming that the producers had undervalued domestic and foreign receipts by tens of millions of dollars. The Scottish actor also claimed in the suit that the producers failed to report $8 million that went to its own studio executives.

According to Rusin, the pandemic was just a catalyst for major studios to consider the balance as between theatrical release and streaming platform release. “It’s all about staying loyal to consumer purchasing behavior,” Rusin added.

You can follow Lorenzo on Instagram at @lorenzorusin.