A lawyer representing Walt Disney Co. in its legal battle against actress Scarlett Johansson defended Disney’s distribution of “Black Widow” and said Disney will seek to move the fight from the courts to arbitration.
“The lawsuit is manifestly wrong in every respect,” said attorney Dan Petrocelli of Ms. Johansson’s recently filed lawsuit. She alleged her contract was breached when Disney last month released the movie “Black Widow” on its Disney+ streaming service at the same time as its theatrical debut.
In Ms. Johansson’s suit, she claimed Disney’s Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release with her bonuses based on the movie’s box-office performance. By making the movie available on Disney+, her potential bonuses were greatly reduced, the suit said. Disney and Marvel, she alleged, were obligated to renegotiate her deal to compensate for the potential damage to the box office.
Mr. Petrocelli countered in an interview Friday that her contract contained no such guarantees.
“There are no limitations or constraints on the company’s judgment on how to distribute ‘Black Widow,’ ” Mr. Petrocelli said. The contract explicitly gives the studio “complete control and decision-making over distribution of the movie,” he said.
Left-leaning Hollywood celebrities are calling for action on gun control and gun reform after a shooting in Boulder, Colo., left 10 people dead including a police officer on Monday.
The deceased victims range in age from 20 to 65 years old, police said. The suspect has been identified as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a 21-year-old Arvada, Colo., man. Authorities have not identified a motive.
The push for gun control came swiftly from outspoken celebrities, who took to Twitter to comment on the shooting and, in some cases, call for leaders to change gun laws in an effort to reduce or prevent more mass shootings.
Actress-turned-activist Alyssa Milano wasted no time pressing for gun violence to be “eradicated” on Twitter as she pushed for filibuster restructuring.
CELEBRITIES CALL FOR GUN CONTROL AFTER TEXAS SHOOTING: ‘WE HAVE A CRISIS HERE’
Mia Farrow simply wrote that “no civilian needs to carry such a weapon,” making reference to the “AR-15 style weapon” the suspect allegedly used to carry out his attack.
Jamie Lee Curtis wrote 14 times in one tweet that lawmakers should “#BanAssaultWeapons.”
Actress Julianne Moore also expressed her outrage at the events that transpired on Monday and shared a graph from a research organization to further illustrate her point.
“We shouldn’t have to live like this. In Atlanta or Boulder or anywhere else,” she wrote on Instagram. “Our elected leaders owe us #MoreThanThoughtsAndPrayers to end our gun violence crisis — they owe us action.”
She also urged people to support the HR8 bill that would make background checks required in order to purchase a gun.
CELEBRITIES REACT TO DAYTON, EL PASO DEADLY SHOOTINGS: ‘JUST LOVE ONE ANOTHER’
“GOP… How would you feel if you lost someone you love to gun violence?” Ellen Barkin asked in a tweet on Tuesday. “Would you still be gripping your AK 15s?”
Director and actress Elizabeth Banks, who has publicly criticized “stand your ground” laws as “BS,” also tweeted that gun control “will save lives.”
Comedian Billy Eichner tweeted that the country needs “GUN REFORM NOW,” and predicted that a “Post-Covid America will see more gun related violence than ever before.”
“Full Metal Jacket” actor Mathew Modine replied to a tweet that said a ban on assault weapons in Boulder was blocked 10 days before the King Soopers grocery store shooting.
“When you live in a democracy – you vote for and elect the officials that represent you, your values and beliefs. As I type, 9,535 gun violence deaths have occurred in the US in 2021,” he wrote.
Funnywoman Wanda Sykes tweeted: “Too soon? I think, not soon enough #GunControlNow.”
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“House of Cards” star Michael Kelly also got in on the discussion and tweeted that many of his military buddies believe assault weapons “have no place in society,” and said at this moment, gun reform is “common sense.”
Fox News’ Tyler McCarthy contributed to this report
is paying a license fee of between $7 million and $9 million for the rights to air Ms. Winfrey’s interview with Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex, according to people familiar with the pact.
The two-hour interview is scheduled for Sunday on CBS at 8 p.m. ET, after the network’s popular news magazine “60 Minutes.” Sunday is one of the biggest nights of television consumption.
As part of the agreement between CBS and Ms. Winfrey’s production company, Harpo Productions, the network also has rights to license the special in international markets. In the U.K., the interview will air Monday on ITV. CBS is a unit of ViacomCBS Inc.
A spokeswoman for the couple said they are not being compensated for the interview.
CBS was seeking roughly $325,000 for 30 seconds of commercial time during the program, according to ad buyers, about twice the normal price of ad time in that time period.
Harpo also pitched
Comcast Corp.’s
NBC and
Walt Disney Co.
’s ABC, people familiar with the situation said.
Ms. Winfrey has ties to CBS. She had a brief stint as a member of the “60 Minutes” team and has been longtime friends with CBS News anchor Gayle King. In addition, CBS owns the company that distributed Ms. Winfrey’s daytime talk show.
Prince Harry and Ms. Markle said last year they would step away from Britain’s royal family. Their departure has been rocky. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as they are known, wanted to trademark the brand “Sussex Royal” but officials at Buckingham Palace said no.
The Sussexes moved to Montecito, Calif. and have focused on various ventures to create audio and video content, including a five-year pact with
Netflix Inc.
that is valued in the $100 million range, according to people with knowledge of the deal.
The couple no longer receives a stipend from Prince Harry’s father, Prince Charles, or funds from the U.K. taxpayer.
Interest in the interview has heated up in recent days after clips promoting it were released in which the couple talked about why they wanted to leave Buckingham Palace.
Big ticket TV interviews used to be a staple of broadcast television. Networks would battle each other to land top newsmakers or celebrities. While TV news divisions say they are loath to pay subjects for interviews, they often end up licensing footage or paying consultants high fees to land the subject.
In this case, CBS News isn’t involved in the interview, nor is it being promoted as a news event. The special is being programmed by the CBS entertainment division.
The head of Jeep’s owner said he is open to dropping the Cherokee name from vehicles after recent criticism from the Native American tribe’s leader.
Carlos Tavares,
chief executive officer of the recently formed
Stellantis
STLA -2.71%
NV, said the company was engaged in dialogue with the Cherokee Nation over its use of the name. Jeep has two models, the Cherokee compact sport-utility vehicle and larger Grand Cherokee, that it sells in the U.S. and beyond.
Asked in an interview if he would be willing to change the Jeep Cherokee’s name if pushed to do so, Mr. Tavares said, “We are ready to go to any point, up to the point where we decide with the appropriate people and with no intermediaries.”
“At this stage, I don’t know if there is a real problem. But if there is one, well, of course we will solve it,” Mr. Tavares said, adding that he wasn’t personally involved in the talks.
Debate over the Cherokee name is among the issues facing Mr. Tavares, who took control of Stellantis when it was formed earlier this year from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Peugeot-maker PSA. In the interview Wednesday, Mr. Tavares also discussed whether to cut down on the company’s 14 brands, making Fiat plants more competitive and his plan to stick with China.
The Cherokee Nation is the largest Native American tribe in the U.S., with some 370,000 members, and Jeep has sold millions of vehicles named after it. The auto brand extended its use of the Cherokee name to a compact SUV, a smaller version of the Grand Cherokee, in 2013.
The leader of the Cherokee Nation recently said he would like to see Jeep stop using his tribe’s name on its SUVs.
Chuck Hoskin Jr.,
principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, said that he believed Jeep had good intentions but that “it does not honor us by having our name plastered on the side of a car,” according to a statement first released to Car and Driver last week.
“The Cherokee Nation has an open dialogue with Stellantis leadership, and look forward to ongoing discussions,” a spokesman for the tribe said Wednesday. “We appreciate Stellantis’ reaching out and thoughtful approach on this.”
“
‘It does not honor us by having our name plastered on the side of a car.’ ”
— Chuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation
Mr. Tavares’s remarks come in the wake of a broad reckoning over racial and social injustice in the U.S. that was sparked by the police killing of
George Floyd,
an unarmed Black man, in Minneapolis over Memorial Day weekend last year. In December, the Cleveland Indians decided to drop the baseball team’s longtime nickname after fans and Native American groups criticized it as racist. The Washington Football Team of the NFL has dropped a name that had been seen as a racial slur.
The Jeep Cherokee and Grand Cherokee SUVs are among the brand’s bestsellers in the U.S., accounting for 43% of Jeep’s sales in its largest market, according to company figures. Stellantis is rolling out a long-awaited redesign of the Grand Cherokee later this year.
Mr. Tavares said the auto industry’s practice of naming cars after Native American tribes was a sign of respect.
“I don’t see anything that would be negative here. I think it’s just a matter of expressing our creative passion, our artistic capabilities,” Mr. Tavares said.
The Jeep brand sits alongside profit-drivers like Ram in the U.S. and Peugeot in Europe. But the company’s sprawling portfolio of 14 brands also includes some that will need to prove their worth, Mr. Tavares said.
Mr. Tavares said he has asked each of his brand chiefs to work on a 10-year plan to develop more long-term visibility on product planning.
“I’m saying, ‘Look guys, I’m going to give you a chance. You need to convince me—you, the brand CEO—that you have a vision,’” Mr. Tavares said.
After several turnaround efforts, Fiat Chrysler’s Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands have failed to mount meaningful comebacks in recent years. The Fiat brand struggles with aging models and weak sales, which has caused an overcapacity problem in the company’s Italian factories.
Even the storied Chrysler brand has waned in recent years, now selling only three models compared with the six it carried a decade ago. The brand’s U.S. sales have also slid to one-third their volume in 2015, according to company figures.
On the PSA side, the DS brand—which focuses on high-end sedans and SUVs—grew market share last year but continues to lag far behind some of its German competitors.
“After we give them a chance to fail, we need to be also fair,” Mr. Tavares said. “If the rest of the company is doing the right things and there is one part of the company that is pulling everybody down, we’ll have to take that into consideration.”
The Portuguese executive built his reputation in the automotive industry as a turnaround expert. Peugeot was bleeding money when it hired Mr. Tavares in 2013. Since then the French car maker has gone from losing 5 billion euros, equivalent to about $6 billion, in 2012 to becoming one of the most profitable mass-market car makers in the industry. Last year it reported a net profit of €2.17 billion, or roughly $2.62 billion, with an adjusted operating margin of 7.1% in its core automotive business.
This time, Mr. Tavares has a longer to-do list, including integrating the two companies’ European businesses and stemming losses in China.
In Europe, Mr. Tavares has been visiting Fiat Chrysler factories—including an Alfa Romeo facility 80 miles south of Rome—and encouraging them to benchmark their performance against PSA plants. Additionally, employees from Fiat Chrysler’s Fiat factory in Mirafiori, Italy, visited PSA’s Citroën’s plant in Madrid, and Mr. Tavares said they were surprised by the nonlabor cost savings they observed.
The auto executive said the new company could reach its cost-saving goals in Europe without closing factories.
Asked what lessons he had learned from the chip shortage that has idled car plants across the world, Mr. Tavares said large suppliers didn’t relay signals they were receiving about the looming crisis. “We were not protected,” he said. “That’s a clear lesson learned.”
Mr. Tavares said the industrywide shift toward electrification would continue to rely on government subsidies and other financial incentives for buyers until auto makers figure out how to lower production costs over the next few years.
“If we propose electric vehicles which are extremely efficient but nobody can buy because they are costly, what’s the point from an environmental perspective?” he said.
In China, the combined sales of Peugeot and Fiat Chrysler accounted for less than 1% of a market that sold 20 million vehicles last year, according to industry data. Fiat Chrysler has long struggled to turn a profit in the world’s largest automotive market, while the French car maker sold only 45,965 vehicles in China last year, continuing a rapid multiyear decline.
Mr. Tavares said Stellantis isn’t considering exiting China, removing an option that he said was still on the table when the company started trading in New York at the start of this year.
“We cannot be away from the biggest market in the world,” he said.
Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com and Nora Naughton at Nora.Naughton@wsj.com
Last week, I wrote a post about how people were sharing examples of celebs who’d received undue backlash or who were (essentially) canceled for no good reason.
People in the comments then shared their own examples of other celebs who they believe didn’t deserve cancellation/backlash. Here’s who they came up with:
Rebecca Black:
Hayden Christensen:
Tiger Woods:
Britney Spears:
What do you think of these additional examples? Let me know in the comments below!
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A visual representation of dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Yuriko Nakao | Getty Images
LONDON — Dogecoin is surging after billionaire Elon Musk and a number of celebrities appeared to back the cryptocurrency on Twitter.
The meme-inspired token rallied 65% in 24 hours to a record high of $0.083745 at 5:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, according to data from CoinMarketCap. As of 5 a.m. ET Monday, dogecoin was up 25% at a price of $0.07415.
Dogecoin’s stellar run has boosted its market value to over $9.5 billion — it briefly hit a high of $10.7 billion Sunday — making it the No. 10 digital coin on CoinMarketCap’s ranking.
At its intraday peak Sunday, trading volume in dogecoin had reached around $13.5 billion in the last 24 hours.
Dogecoin was created in 2013 and is based on the then-popular “doge” meme which portrays a Shiba Inu dog alongside multi-colored text in Comic Sans font. The cryptocurrency was initially started as a joke but has since gained a following.
Retail investors have pumped up dogecoin’s price recently, taking their cue from the tweets of Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Musk has tweeted about dogecoin several times over the years.
More recently, he posted a picture of a fictional “Dogue” magazine — a play on the popular fashion title “Vogue” — leading to an 800% surge in dogecoin’s price.
Musk subsequently threw his support behind bitcoin, saying it is “on the verge of getting broad acceptance” in finance. But he added he doesn’t have a “strong opinion” on other virtual currencies and that his tweets about dogecoin are meant to be taken as jokes.
“But fate loves irony,” Musk said recently on the social audio app Clubhouse. “The most entertaining outcome and the most ironic outcome would be that dogecoin becomes the currency of Earth in the future.”
Musk has seen made several tweets about dogecoin. Just two days after saying he planned to take a break from Twitter “for a while,” Musk returned, posting dogecoin memes and calling the token “the people’s crypto.”
He has been joined by the likes of Snoop Dogg and Kiss singer Gene Simmons in posting tweets backing dogecoin. Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., tweeted at Musk with a parody of one of his albums. The words on the album cover are replaced with “Snoop Doge” while the doge image covers Broadus’ face.
Meanwhile, Gene Simmons — whose actual name is Gene Klein — has actively promoted dogecoin to his followers, tweeting popular slang phrases in crypto like “HODL” and “to the moon.” Klein says he made a “six figure” investment in dogecoin and also owns other cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin.
The episode is reminiscent of the late-2017 crypto craze, when bitcoin’s price skyrocketed to almost $20,000 before plummeting close to $3,000 the following year. Multiple celebrities had hyped up crypto in 2017, with some endorsing a controversial form of crowdfunding known as an “initial coin offering.”
Dogecoin’s resurgence in the last few weeks has also been down to enthusiasm from a Reddit group called SatoshiStreetBets. Like the WallStreetBets subreddit, which helped fuel the recent GameStop rally, SatoshiStreetBets aims to pump up the prices of cryptocurrencies.