Jamie Lee Curtis Has Simple Message in Support of Scarlett Johansson: “Don’t F-ck With” the Black Widow Star

Scarlett Johansson can count Jamie Lee Curtis among those who have her back amid her lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company. Curtis wrote a tribute to the Black Widow star as part of Time’s The 100 Most Influential People of 2021 and had a very clear and fierce message for those who might come up against Johansson: don’t f-ck with her.

“I recently watched her own the screen as the Black Widow, who exacts revenge on a powerful figure who manipulates (emphasis on man) women to fight for him,” Curtis wrote. “And then I saw her brilliant response to a real-life manipulation (same emphasis), when she filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against the studio, alleging its decision to release the film simultaneously in theaters and on streaming cost her substantial losses in pay.”

She continued, “Whether as an assassin with a conscience, an actor with an emotional center or, having just given birth to her second child, a fierce mother, the message is clear: Don’t f-ck with this mama bear.”

In July, Johansson filed a lawsuit over the release of Black Widow on Disney+. In the lawsuit, Johansson alleges that Disney breached their contract when they released the film not just in theaters, but also on Disney+ Premier Access. Johansson claims that because her pay for Black Widow is heavily based upon the film’s box office performance and the VOD revenue from the Premier Access release isn’t counted as box office, the Disney+ release cut into her profit from the film. A nasty back-and-forth between Disney and Johansson’s camp broke out and the matter is ongoing.

In addition to Curtis, Johansson has gotten a lot of support form others in the industry, including Marvel co-star Elizabeth Olsen.

“I think she’s so tough and literally when I read [about the lawsuit] I was like, ‘Good for you Scarlett,’” Olsen said in a Vanity Fair interview with Ted Lasso star Jason Sudekis. “When it comes to actors and their earnings, I mean, that’s just… that’s just all contracts. So it’s either in the contract or it’s not.”

Dune director Denis Villeneuve also has spoken out in support of Johansson.

“What if the reverse happens and we don’t live up to the contracts we signed on our side?” Villeneuve asked. “In addition, it is wrong to believe that cinema on the big screen is not doing well. But this industry is on a roller coaster ride, which is at odds with Wall Street’s desire for stability. And these platform subscriptions provide studios with fixed income. I have nothing against platforms, quite the contrary. They are an extraordinary tool to give us access to the memory of cinema. But a film’s career must begin with the big screen first. From now on, I will also contractually require my films to be released in theaters first. ”