According to a new report fromThe Hollywood Reporter (viaScreenRant), Marvel Studios has been using a stringent nomenclature to define the status and significance of character appearances in films, which directly affect the comic creators' pay. Per contractual obligations, Marvel Studios must pay comic book creators some royalty fees to use their respective creations in itsMarvel Cinematic Universefilms. For instance, every Spider-Man appearance in a movie will account for separate fees owed to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, who wrote and created Spider-Man.
But, Marvel Studios is paying creators per the screen time of their respective character creations in the films. According to the report, Marvel designates any characters' appearance as a cameo if they appear for less than 15% of the film’s total run time. And owing to the lesser screen time, the creators of such creators are subjected to lesser pay. For instance, Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes appears for around 22 minutes in 2-hour and 28-minutes of the runtime ofCaptain America: Civil War. Here, despite the character being of enormous significance to that story, he is designated as a cameo, resulting in pay cuts for creator Ed Brubaker.
Moreover, the regulation discards any appearance of that character in a scene that didn’t make the final cut or ended up getting deleted on the editing table. This added screen time can make an essential change when designating an appearance as a cameo.
Marvel previously has been under the radar for its policies against the creators. The studio is giving new backdrops to these characters with a fresh approach, but at last, the films are derived from the stories the original creators penned down in the comics.
Last year,another report fromThe Hollywood Reporterpublished statements Marvel comic creators (as well as those of DC Comics) gave as they aren’t fully satisfied with the treatment they are getting from the studios, especially when it comes to getting an appropriate amount and credit for a production featuring their characters.
As the news of Marvel’s partial policies that keep creators off the pay tabs is getting traction, it may affect the studios' rapport.
The Rule Hits Hard in Ensemble Films
The rule is further unprofitable for creators when their characters appear in ensemble films, that is, the star-studded crossovers set in the MCU. For instance, several MCU characters in films likeInfinity Warend up in the cameo section as the film primarily features Thanos as the central character. Even actors like Chris Evans didn’t get much screen time in that film. This means that Captain America creators also get pay cuts in such a scenario.
As theMarvel Cinematic Universeis moving forward, the repercussions of this rule on creators may get more substantial as several of its future projects will comprise fan-service cameos. To keep the audience in the loop with intertwining stories, the studio may push for team-ups of characters in the future so that fans don’t have to wait long to see their favorite characters again.
Whether Marvel will immediately rectify this regulation or not is entirely on the studio. Still, since Disney (Marvel Studios' parent company) is the world’s largest and most financially strong Hollywood conglomerate, it shouldn’t leave the comic creators in the dark.
