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Stan Lee to be Paid Millions for Spidey
Soldrinero writes "After a tough legal battle that began in 2002 (mentioned in a previous Slashdot story), Stan Lee will finally get his due. A recent court decision says that Marvel owes Lee 10% of their profits for works based on his creations. Since three recent Marvel-based movies are in the all-time top 100 for box-office gross, this will be a sizable chunk of change."
The contract stated that Lee would get 'him to 10 percent of TV, movie and merchandising deals'. **AA can't use only the laws it likes; I just wish more actors would (could) go freelance and rid us of this type of cancer. If more people had similar clauses then it would be more cost effective to cut out the middleman and figure out someway to produce entertainment material on their own - visionary may be seeing some kind of internet distribution system for just a mere fraction of the cost of big name distributors. This won't happen anytime soon because Stephen King tried it already and it didn't work but he was a visionary and one day it will work.
What about the co-creator, Steve Ditko? Where's his payday?
Speak truth to power.
... and pay to have those creations made, and cover the costs involved in marketing, selling and sistributing those creations.
MPAA maybe, but most members of the RIAA just "lend" the artist the money to create and promote their work and then collect it back after they sell records.... If the artist doesn't the artist owes. I know more then one artists getting fucked this way.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Yeah, Lee is a creative genius - not. Stan Lee was merely the relative of the publisher. It's good to have friends in high places.
The most obvious proof of this is a superficial glance at his career. When he's working with people like Ditko and Kirby, he's nothing short of a genius. On the other hand, when he "creates" on his own, he comes up with... "She-Hulk" (or Stripperella). Few people ever bother to make that correlation.
I worked on a project a few years ago that was nominated for an Eisner. We were a complete longshot, since the publishing run was smaller than the voting body, but someone asked if what we'd say if we won. My suggestion that "it's an honor to accept an award from one of the few people to have emerged from the Golden Age of Comics without Stan Lee's cock in their ass" struck them as being a tad excessive. But it would have been a nice sentiment.
Now Will's left the building. Kirby's gone. Ditko's gone off the deepend. And we're left left with Stan.
Sigh...