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?
I begrudge no one their legal due. But it’s sad that Stan gets more millions, while so many of the true Greats (like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) bet barely a pat on the back. A few weeks ago I went around telling people that Will Eisner had died. Nobody knew who I was talking about. But they all knew Stan Lee’s smiling face.
“Excelsior!” indeed.
Then let Steve Ditko earn what he deserves for Spidey. It´s not only Stan´s credit.
I don’t see anything wrong with Marvel being forced to honor the contractual obligation they had with Stan Lee. To me, how many hours he works a week or whether he needs the money or not is completely irrelevant. This industry is all about people making more money than they know what to do with. In my opinion, it simply boils down to the fact that Marvel was getting a screaming deal by only having to pay Stan Lee $1 million a year and didn’t want to honor his contract which would require them to pay a great deal more.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION PERTAINING TO THIS STORY:
Here’s one important factor to this story that’s missing in order for Stan Lee’s side to be heard. Lee was supposed to get that money from the beginning. I may be mistaken, but I believe Lee was entitled to that money from the beginning, but Marvel was holding out on him. I was reading about this on AOL News. The reason Lee filed for lawsuit was because he had been trying to get the money promised to him for years, to no avail. (If this information is inaccurate, please let me know.)
Now, of course he doesn’t NEED that much money, but can anyone honestly say he doesn’t deserve it? I mean, why should Sony and Marvel reap all the benefits of Stan Lee’s creativity? Especially when Marvel originally refused to publish a character called Spider-Man. Forgive me for saying so, but I think if anyone in this business transaction deserves the money, it’s Stan Lee, without whom there would be no Spider-Man, nor X-Men, nor Hulk, nor DareDevil, nor any of the other superheros Hollywood has, and has yet to, make a bloomin’ fortune off of.
Couple of things about Stan Lee.
1) He is exactly as portrayed in Daniel Clowes excellent Pussey! comics.
2) He came to the Comic Fair in Barcelona and he behaved as the bastard he is.
That´s all folks.
That’s one of the big problems with the comic book industry prior to the early 1990s – creators not receivinng royalties for their creations. Many of Lee’s peers from the 1950s and 1960s created these iconic characters for DC and Marvel while they were hourly or per-page employees. But they receive no compensation for the character when it hits the big time. Many of these guys, (and gals), end up with no retirement money, no health insurance and living out their lives in run-down nursing homes because of it. Granted, Stan Lee is the exception to the rule, but there have been many great comic creators who have hit hard times when they develop life threatening illnesses.
Alter Ego Comics
Stan is “the man”, but Jack Kirby will always be “the King”. I would very much wish to see Marvel acknowledge him, and i hope his great contributions are equally remembered.
I believe, and fully expect to be corrected if I’m wrong, that the $1m a year salary don’t have anything to do with the first Spider-Man, but it’s the paycheck he gets for being him. Creator of so many Marvel characters and former owner/editor in chief and whatnot. The lawsuit has to do with something in his contract, that says he’s entitled to 10% of what Marvel earns when they license the characters he created, something that was probobly written in there long before the company had any idea they would have this kind of success on their hands.
Something like that. A site like newsarama.com have more details.
Okey, now I went off and found me a link. Seems like I was more or less correct:
http://www.newsarama.com/pages/Marvel/Lee_MovieMoney.htm
Tsk tsk tsk. Oh okay, he may be entitled to it since it is his creation but following on from this report, this is all I have to say about this, greed that’s what it is. Why would he settle for something lesser from the beginning and now that the franchise has gone bigger and bigger he had to sue and demand the 10%?
In future I guess all creative geniuses who might have to go through this, I have one piece of advice, learn from George Lucas, he saw it coming when Star Wars first came out so now he doesnt have to answer to anybody, whatever comes in, are all his.
I am not a Spiderman fan so I wont contribute to Stan Lee’s growing web empire.