
Wil Wheaton Says MPAA Accounting Creates More Losses Than Piracy - joejohnson
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120124/04344817524/wil-wheaton-says-chris-dodd-is-lying-about-lost-jobs-says-mpaa-accounting-creates-more-losses-than-piracy.html
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danteembermage
I don't understand why actors don't negotiate on observables like total box
office receipts rather than numbers that can be gamed. That said I'm going to
be purely speculative and venture a guess:

I'm suspicious that actors and actresses actually are not that interested (as
a group, I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions) in getting paid from
residuals and actually prefer to get a big check rather than a smaller check
with bigger payments later. I think philosophically though they feel entitled
to an equity stake, after all how much of the success of a blockbuster movie
is due to the stars that are in it i.e. they bring significant brand value. So
they _deserve_ a fractional share, but don't necessarily want to get paid that
way for risk and time preference reasons. So we get a mutually agreed upon
fiction where the actors get a big check AND a huge chunk of the profits which
in practice will be zero since we'll account away the profit, yet we still
respect the enormously significant contribution of stars to blockbuster
pictures by giving them an imaginary equity stake. It seems that actors and
actresses tend to act less like capitalists and more like star employees and
so in practice their compensations looks more like what you'd expect from the
latter than the former.

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rphlx
In the end I think much of the power lies with the studios, as they have more
capital, and are closer to the customer. Blockbusters can easily create stars,
but stars usually cannot - without major studio backing - create blockbusters.

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danteembermage
This is absolutely true for the first movie, I wonder how much it applies to
the seventh. I think Daniel Radcliffe would have a not of negotiation power in
discussing salary for Harry Potter 7 part 2; there's a bit of a hold up
problem. Also there's more than one studio and they do compete for talent,
although you always have to look out for gentlemen's agreements a la Apple.

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danudey
I'm not sure this is true. The likelihood is that the contract for all the
movies was signed before any of the movies, such that Radcliffe would be
contractually obliged to finish the series, rather than holding development
hostage at the last minute.

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danteembermage
This is true of the first five films, but the later ones were separately
negotiated

"Radcliffe found himself playing the lead role of Harry Potter in the
anticipated family film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, based on
J.K. Rowling's popular novel, and signed on to star in the first five movies.
Once his contract was up, he signed another contract for $50 million to star
in the final two films of the series."

<http://www.tribute.ca/people/daniel-radcliffe/6160/>

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gerggerg
Definitely a well known phenomenon but I'm glad to see more industry
professionals acknowledging it and speaking out.

I think a lot of the industry's professionals are looking for innovation and a
way into the future while the industry itself refuses to provide.

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TheCapn
I'm glad Wil Wheaton is so vocal about his distain for the industry practices.
He holds a lot of respect in many "geek's" minds and is a good spokesperson
for many people to get behind. If enough people start raising questions then
hopefully we can see more public debate regarding these practices from the
general public.

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untog
Devil's advocate: would Wheaton be speaking out in this way if he were more
successful actor?

I don't for a second mean to talk down his accomplishments- he's an author,
blogger and even TV personality these days- but now that he doesn't rely on
his acting career he can talk out against Hollywood accounting. I would
imagine that other middling-successful actors would worry about doing that, as
Hollywood could easily refuse to hire them and destroy their career.

I guess what I would like to see is someone like George Clooney, Brad Pitt,
etc. speak out about this kind of stuff. They're big enough that I don't think
Hollywood could shut them out, and they're also successful enough that I don't
think Hollywood accounting affects them so much personally. But they could
speak out on behalf of lesser known actors.

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blahedo
> _They're big enough that I don't think Hollywood could shut them out,_

Most of us on this board are probably too young to remember the blackballing
of (accused) communists in the 50s and 60s, but that put a permanent end to
the career of some fairly big stars of the time. The context is somewhat
different, but I think if the (perceived) threat is big enough that there
isn't really any actor that's too big to shut out.

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untog
I don't know about that. Being labelled a communist resulted in you being seen
as a threat to national security. The obvious parallel today is a terrorist,
but I'm pretty sure that any attempt to portray George Clooney as an extremist
terrorist would fail.

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saraid216
Belief in one's own invincibility is probably one of the stupidest beliefs
conceivable, straight past creationism without shedding any speed.

Besides, you wouldn't portray him as a terrorist. You'd portray him as a
Muslim.

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blahedo
> _You'd portray him as a Muslim._

Or a Muslim _sympathizer_. Better, and yet worse.

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aw3c2
Direct link: [http://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/16246156406/mpaa-
directly-...](http://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/16246156406/mpaa-directly-
publicly-threatens-politicians-who)

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citricsquid
I find this a curious statement. I don't necessarily (dis)agree but how can it
be proven? What if Piracy really does have a huge impact on sales? I see his
point but it's a gesture of disapproval not an actual point because piracy and
the supposed resulting lost sales have no quantifiable measure.

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corford
Until their is a "quantifiable measure" draconian legislation like SOPA and
PIPA shouldn't even be on the table.

Edit: creative accounting is fairly quantifiable, so why not "fix" that first?

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drhowarddrfine
A lot of people here are running away from what Wheaton is actually saying and
this is all he's saying:

"Hollywood’s refusal to adapt to changing times is what’s costing the studios
money. That’s it."

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mrleinad
Great that he's vocal about this.

It's a pity no one takes Mr. Crusher seriously.

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dimitar
I think there are people who do, however they are such geeks that he is
preaching to the choir :-)

