How rich do some people have to be? Not content with a mere $1m a year salary from the first Spiderman movie, and that seems to be rolling on year to year, Stan Lee successfully sued for a 10% share of the takings from the movie, and that’s a hefty amount! The Guardian has the story:
Stan Lee, has won a landmark court case in the US which entitles him to 10% of the profits from film and television spin-offs of his Marvel Comics superhero…
The dispute centred on Marvel’s claim that Mr Lee was not due a share of profits from the first Spider-Man movie, which took more than $800m at the worldwide box office and more than $100m from associated toys. It had instead been paying him a salary of $1m a year for a 15-hour week.
That’s going to be one hell of a paycheck, imagine receiving that kind of money? Lee was pleased but…
disappointed that it had been necessary to bring the case to court in the first place.
He said in a statement: “Since I am deeply fond of Marvel and the people there, I sincerely regret the situation had to come to this.”
I really don’t know all the background behind the story, but it strikes me that you would try and negotiate these things at the start of a project and not just settle for a lesser payment. If you think you are entitled to the 10% why sign up for $1m a year? Or, at the time did he think that the resulting profits might not yield more than the salary?
