WGA’s victory in the 'Bird Box' case directly led to writers of other films on the streaming service receiving the additional $42m in unpaid residuals.
The Writers Guild of America has announced that arbitration against Netflix over the 2018 Sandra Bullock film Bird Box has resulted in members receiving $42m in previously unpaid residuals.
A third-party arbitrator in the Bird Box case found that Netflix had underpaid residuals on the film, according to the Guild, thus awarding the film’s writer $850,000 in total residuals with $350,000 in interest. (Arrival screenwriter Eric Heisserer wrote the film, based on the novel of the same name by Josh Malerman.)
In a statement, WGA said: “As a direct result of this ruling, 216 writers on 139 other Netflix theatrical films are receiving an additional $42m in unpaid residuals. The Guild is now pursuing approximately $13.5m in interest Netflix also owes writers for late payment of these residuals.”
The streaming service began producing and releasing theatrical films written by Guild members in 2016, but the Guild’s initial compensation under their collective bargaining agreement only covers those films’ theatrical runs. But when those films are licensed or released in other markets, residuals need to be paid on revenues earned in those markets.
Netflix instead negotiated new deals with the DGA and SAG-AFTRA that allowed for them to pay residuals on significantly less than the cost of the film, attempting to force the WGA to accept the “pattern” deal.
“The typical residual for the credited writer is 1.2% of the license fee paid to the producer for the right to exhibit that film,” the WGA East added. When a distributor is both producer and distributor of a film title, as Netflix was with Bird Box, the WGA requires companies to calculate the license fee by looking at license fees paid out to third-party producers on similar films.
The WGA decided to take the dispute to arbitration and prevailed, earning those 216 screenwriters a total of $64m in residuals, about $20m more than what they were initially going to receive under the DGA and SAG-AFTRA deal.
