Elizabeth Olsen to aspiring Marvel actors: “Only give them one”
Don’t be a Chris, Tom, Stan, or Sam and sign a multi-picture deal and end up in a Multiverse Of Madness
Aux News Elizabeth Olsen
Everybody gets one, as Spider-Man frequently reminds us. It’s advice that Wanda Maximof herself, Elizabeth Olsen, took to heart. Speaking with Josh Horowitz of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Olsen got candid about managing one’s career within the Marvel Cinematic Universe management, giving Horowitz the secret to maintaining artistic credibility within the multiverse machinations of tentpole filmmaking. “Just give them one,” she said.
Olsen knows what it’s like having survived three Avengers movies, a Captain America, her own television series, and one Multiverse Of Madness. Responding to Horowitz’s question about advice for aspiring superheroes, Olsen says that some have asked her about drinking the super serum and signing up for a role. But Olsen maintains that less is more in these kinds of negotiations. “You have more control,” she said. “If you say, ‘Oh my God, this is the most fun I’ve ever had, and I love this character so much, I want to do it again,’ you now have more creative control for the next one.”
Many of her fellow Avengers haven’t been so careful. As Entertainment Weekly notes, Tom Holland and Chris Evans signed on for six-picture deals, while Samuel L. Jackson and Sebastian Stan signed on for nine. Of course, where would be without the nine adventures of everyone’s favorite and most memorable MCU character, the Winter Soldier? But if you leave them wanting more, they have to offer more money for you to come back.
But also, not everyone enters their Marvel career with Olsen money. Obviously, Elizabeth comes from a show-business legacy that may have informed some of her decision-making when jumping into bed with Disney. Still, currently, there are no plans to bring Wanda back into the MCU, so there is no contract for Olsen. Speaking to The Today Show last month, Olsen said that she hopes to return, but there is no contract.“I have no idea,” said Olsen. “When I say that, it’s not because I have a loaded answer. It’s because I say, ‘Yes I hope so,’ and I mean it at face value. There’s no contract. There you go.” As if speaking for every downtrodden human being on this wretched planet, Al Roker responded, with a tired, desperate plea: “Marvel, call.”
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“Everybody gets one, as Spider-Man frequently reminds us.”I really hope this confuses the hell out of people. It’s such a delicious reference.
Cut to spider-man looking up from a book:“You don’t even know who I am!”
Spider-who? I’ve never heard of this fellow. Wait, is he related to Ant-Man?
He is cousins with Ant-Man and Uncle-Woman.
Or Benjamin Disraeli, for that matter.
Vinjamin Dieseli?
And now, Conway Twitty.
Tell em Peter.
Uh yeah, everybody gets one apparently.
Who’s Peter?
This immediately sent me back to my preteens in the early 2000s gathered around ‘the boob’ with my parents. Good reference AV Club.
Wait, Elizabeth Olsen is actually triplets? Someone’s been reading my diary!
I am seeing double! Six Elizabeth Olsens!
Go drunk Lincoln, you’re home!
*Elizabeths Olsen
I thought those other two were just Mary-Kate and Ashley suspended from cables.
um . . . no . . .
Don’t be so sure
Gaaaah! My soul!
ehhh you were only gonna waste it anyway
Harsh but fair.
You’d think the one on the left, having been an actor all her life, would know what a camera looks like and wouldn’t be shocked.
Man, they look like one of them knows how you’re going to die and the other knows when.
Yeah, like something a Greek hero would have to speak to to fulfill his quest.
They all look like they’re helping Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ron Perlman look for fire to keep their cave warm.
omg I haven’t seen a picture of them in years and I just see Wanda whoa.
I thought there were only two, but they combined to make a bigger one.
Station!
Come on, this like the AV Club is literally a piece of The Onion history.https://www.theonion.com/lapd-discovers-hidden-deformed-olsen-triplet-1819567036
Damn. Beat me to it.
She’s the third Olsen triplet Ethyl! She growed up real purty though.https://www.theonion.com/lapd-discovers-hidden-deformed-olsen-triplet-1819567036
It’s good that the holding-back of Scarlett Witch’s character is with intention from Olsen, but generally actors are striving for the kind of main character superstardom/franchise deal that Cap America, Thor, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Starlord, etc. got. Whereas Wanda is oddly positioned as a major and very powerful character who at this point seems like she’ll never get her due like the rest. Her (short) Disney+ show was great but with her character’s potential she should be on her 3rd solo lead theatrical Wanda film by now.
It took 50 years in the comics for Scarlett Witch to get a good story.
To be fair, it is pretty much the same for every female Marvel character that has been around a long time.
That is fair, but I’d give Jean Grey and Storm a pass. X-Men were a little more in tune with things.
most interesting thing Marvel did narratively was examine Hollywood narratives with Wandavision, only to totally undo all that clever work with Dr. Strange lol
That’s about right for Scarlet Witch.
After all the casual mass murder they had her doing in the last film, I can’t imagine her being much of a sympathetic character again.
Of course, where would be without the nine adventures of everyone’s favorite and most memorable MCU character, the Winter Soldier?I’ll grant that nine seems like a crazy number at first, but he’s done six and a tv show. They’re shooting the seventh movie featuring him now. Unless they kill the character off surely he’ll be in the next two Avenger movies. That’s nine. and a show.
I think he’s in two upcoming movies. Captain America: NWO and Thunderbolts. My guess is that those movies will have a lot to do with each other. Suppose he’s dying in the next Avengers movie.
Oooh right, I forgot all about Thunderbolts. They definitely need to start culling some of these avengers. They barely squeezed everyone in in Endgame and now there are even more characters.Supposedly there was a cut scene from Endgame where Bucky save’s Tony in the battle and he nods or something. Not an “I forgive you for murdering my parents” nod, but some slight resolution to that story before he died. Shame they had to cut it, but I can’t blame them.
I wish I could forget about Thunderbolts.
Those wily Thundberbolts. All this fluff just to move Florence over from A to B. I expect round-the-clock drama reports from The AV Club.
Has he been confirmed in Captain America NWO? It would be weird to not have him given the connection to that franchise and the relationship with Sam, but I don’t think I’ve seen it confirmed he’ll be back in that one.
They did a 9 picture deal with him because there’s an Eisner-award winning comic book run that ends with Bucky becoming Captain America. That leads into BuckyCap comics co-starring Natasha. It didn’t pan out that way as Marvel went with a Cap relevant for the era we’re in, they killed Natasha, they didn’t do Bucky/Natasha etc.They were prepping for the possibility of Evans leaving.BuckyCap was a temporary measure to give the character a redemption arc. He did go back to being the WS when Steve came back. BuckyCap’s real accomplishment was getting comic fans who were angry about Bucky’s death being retconned to be happy about someone else as Cap.
I really liked Brubaker’s whole run. When Winter Soldier is written well by someone like him, he is one of my favorite characters.
I only see five movies – the three Cap movies and Avengers IW and EG. Are you counting his uncredited cameo in Black Panther? I kind of doubt they would count that against his nine, Chris Evans brief cameo in Thor 2 didn’t count against his six.
Yeah, I was. Weren’t many of Jackson’s nine just brief cameos? I don’t actually know for sure it counts though, I was just assuming because at some point Jackson’s contract was over and they had to do a new one. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t have nine actual roles. You have to count stuff like the end of Iron Man.
I Googled it and Sam Jackson recently did an interview saying he had two pictures left on his original deal. But he has been in 11 movies with three uncredited cameos and one very brief cameo in Endgame.My guess is the ten second cameos which are mostly uncredited don’t count towards the contractual films these guys have.
Ah, makes sense. He’ll still hit nine if he survives through the second avengers/kang movie.
He was also in the post-credit scene for Ant-Man teasing Civil War. Maybe two post-credit cameos equals one contract credit? Who knows. Either way, 4 Cap movies, Thunderbolts, and presumably 4 Avengers (if he survives Kang and signs off in Secret Wars) would be nine. Of course, he’s also not officially announced as being part of Cap 4, so… again, who knows.
That post-credit scene was lifted directly from Civil War, so it could be that Ant-Man didn’t count toward the 9 picture deal because no new footage was shot?
That post-credits scene in Ant-Man was just an actual scene from Civil War though.
Also, it’s not like Sebastian Stan was a household name before the role. If I were an actor of his caliber and Marvel came a-knockin’, I’d sign on for nine too! It’s guaranteed work that gives you some potential visibility to do other things down the line. Why wouldn’t Stan sign on for as many as possible?
Yeah, go ahead and set your own terms with Marvel… they love that.
Next time baby!!
The maths didn’t add up for him, eh?
This ^ is the funniest thing I’ve seen in awhile. Nicely done.
I really appreciate this comment hahahaha
It feels like Marvel, post-Howard/Norton, made a very conscious decision to hire unknowns and (then) B & C listers that they could lock into multi-picture deals for cheap, and now they’ve gotten to the point where stars need them more than vice versa. It very much feels like they have most of the leverage in a fresh deal, and any negotiating strength Olsen has now is born of the fact that she’s already done like six movies for them. Unless you’re Angelina Jolie agreeing to be the fourth lead in a team movie nobody’s heard of, it’s hard to imagine them hiring a new major character who’s not willing to commit to at least a three-picture deal.
Well to be honest hiring more or less unknowns is a VERY smart idea. Get them for “cheap” and give them back end points. I mean heck even RDJ was past his prime, star power wise, when they cast him as Iron Man. I mean heck even someone like Evans was known mostly for teen rom coms, and Fantasic Four, but he wasn’t anywhere near the star he is now, same with Hemsworth, outside of Australia, or even Olsen. Heck I didn’t even know there was even a 3rd Olsen sister, and funnily enough she ended up being the most attractive IMO of the 3 lol.
Chris Evans was not mostly known for teen romcoms — he was only in a parody of a teen romcom that one time 22 years ago. And he’s arguably less of a star now than he was when he was hired for Captain America (it was also his fourth comic book movie role). The only thing making him known as a star is, ironically, his now-completed role as Captain America.Now, he’s also VERY RICH now. But that’s not the same thing as name recognition or box office success.Same applies to Hemsworth, Holland, Hiddleston, and several other MCU actors who try to go mainstream and whose movies bomb horribly over and over. They aren’t stars outside of the MCU, they’re MCU stars.
“And he’s arguably less of a star now than he was when he was hired for Captain America”
Go ahead, argue that he’s less of a star now than he was when he was best known for being in Cellular and two terrible, terrible, terrible Fantastic Four movies.
PLEASE, I want to see this argument.Aaaaaaaand GO!
Fair enough, but I would argue more people know who Evans is, in this example now that when he was known for mainly only teen romcoms, but you could be right they are mcu stars not wide stars. Though I have enjoyed much of the actors stuff outside of the MCU,
The problem is that his contract said he was going to be in “one times ones” number of movies. Editors note: look up the insane rant Terrance Howard had a few years back about how 1 times 1 is actually 2.
Still waiting on that ‘Terryology’ TED Talk…
Then look up his opinion on women’s hygiene and baby wipes.
Yeah like I said below. Was racism involved in his firing, probably. Is it also pretty clear he is probably a terrible misogynist as well, yeah.
I thought it was Howard asking them to pay him what they’d already offered before they decided to seriously lowball him instead (with the likely aim of getting him to quit by doing so).
It’s one of those things where I’m not sure we will ever get the full story. It sounds like a combination of an actor with an ego, a producer who knew who the real money maker is and a very racist company head.I feel like Marvel screwed over Howard but Howard also was a huge pain in the ass to work with
iirc, he was also involved in some domestic violence legal proceedings right around the time they dropped him. From what I remember, after reading about the incident(s), I was not at all surprised when he subsequently got replaced.
Yeah I refuse to believe Marvel got Don Cheadle for less than Terrance Howard and that they just happened to lowball Howard at the same time he attacked his girlfriend with a baseball bat while working for a director who is well known for putting conduct clauses in his contracts.
I always thought he demanded more money than RDJ or something of that ilk
That dude is a literal crazy person, an abuser and an overall piece of shit. He also wanted more money than the star and main character of the movie. That isn’t knowing your worth, that’s arrogance.
“Only give them 1 x 1 = 2″
This was the first thing I thought of when Matt said “if you leave them wanting more they’ll have to more money to come back”.
He actually had a contract and Perlmutter decided to ignore it.
Not all of us can crash with our literal billionaire sisters if our careers stall, sweetie. Most actors would kill for the financial security of a milti-film Marvel deal.
I know the official definition of “literal” has actually been changed to include modern usage of the word in sarcastic settings, so I’m not sure if that’s what you’re going for here… but just to be clear the Olsen twins are not billionaires. They’re very, very rich – richer than anyone needs to be, but still the difference between being worth a couple hundred million and $1b is like the difference between owning a fish tank and owning an ocean.
No need to be condescending cuz your life sucks.
There’s no BETTER reason!
She is only saying this as *advice*, albeit oblivious to the fact that most actors do want a multipic deal, and wouldn’t have the career-strength-leverage to only do a one-off deal with Disney (in which they have all the $ leverage if the movie or character is a hit and Marvel will want more of their work.) It is also NOT what she did herself – I negotiated an indie role for her during her 2nd Marvel outing – she was signed for 4 films (with the IW & EG roles as minor and non-exclusive). She had the basic terms for potential tv series already worked into her film deal; she negotiated a nice payday for Strange 2 and was #2 on the call sheet, with no further commitments for more in the immediate offing. That may be why she’s thinking “single deal pic is the way to go” — but that’s certainly not the way it goes, or went, or that Marvel/Disney would go (unless you’re talking single-pic villain or one-time cameo or such, obv).
I negotiated an indie role for her during her 2nd Marvel outingReally.
Yes – “Wind River”, an excellent movie in which she was stellar.
When Evans and the others signed those deals, the norm and expectation was that they never had to do it because the movies would peter out.Hell, I think Gruffudd, Chiklis, Alba and yes, Evans, were technically on the hook for FF3 for years
And yet somehow the fact that the lack of a contract means she doesn’t know if she’ll be asked back for another movie and has to “hope” is entirely lost on her, I guess?Like sure, you can argue for the flexibility of not having a multiple picture contract, but it does come with downsides too.
Really the main upside I see here is the ability to say no to a crappy script. She may or may not get more money the next time out, depending on how the last one performed.
This was definitely the undertone I got from this statement. Don’t sign away your life to these people until you even know what its for.
You can refuse to accept any job offer of a permanent (or just longer term) nature and try to negotiate the offer down to single session/project terms. Sure.You just lose any real security beyond “we liked what you did well enough to rehire you”.Shouldn’t be any different with movies.
Yeah. I’m just saying that it’s weird to phrase it as “giving you more control” and then also say that you have no idea if you’ll get to act in the next movie. That’s not more control, that’s less.
That was a bit weird. I was reading along like “mm hm, mm hm, yeah, that makes sense,” then I get to the end like wait what? They “have to” offer you more money…or they can just not call you at all.
“They “have to” offer you more money…or they can just not call you at all.”
You understand that Disney was quite vocally happy with her, right?
And also, you’ve clearly not missed the entire point, which is that she’s fine with not doing more.
I mean, HOW you missed that point I don’t understand, but it was literally the single point she was making, and it flew so far over your head…
Even some of the most successful actors are famously insecure about being out of work. On top of that, if they want someone available for six movies and an actor says “let’s go one at a time,” they will probably just move on to the next candidate. There haven’t been a whole lot of Marvel roles that JUST HAD to be played by a certain person. Many actors have made those roles their own, but before the movie started filming nobody said anything like “if they can’t get Chris Evans, there’s no point to make a Captain America movie.”
“if they can’t get Chris Evans, there’s no point to make a Captain America movie.”Thing is, Sarah Halley Finn is a goddess in her field and most of the fancastings for these roles are garbage (FFS, there was an entire movement to cast John Kraczynski of all people as Reed Richards solely because his wife was up for a Marvel role and people retroactively pretend that they were choosing the best actor for the role). Marvel KNOWS who they need/want for the role and internet fancasts just ain’t it. Marvel’s not specifically casting people who will put butts in seats, they’re casting people who can act and have a good work ethic.
She does other films tho.
The term you are looking for is “marginal utility”.The value of a millionaire’s next million dollars is weighed against the cost having your name associated with a piece of shit, not against working enough hours to be eligible for the company health plan.
Yeah don’t bring up the nepotism, the entitlement and that she comes from an ultrawealthy family and can afford to turn down work. I like her acting but every time i see an interview with her she says stupid thing after stupid thing. So oblivious to her entitlement…
Maybe she’s not oblivious and just doesn’t give a fuck about appeasing terminally online chuds like you.
I thought Marvel/Disney were the ones who initiated cutting back on offering multi-picture deals and have been doing that already?
I also remember reading a quote from Kevin Feige back when Phase 4 was just starting to release that they were moving away from the mega picture contracts too.
Wouldn’t it be nice if they killed a character and they stayed dead for once? Please don’t bring back Wanda, she’s done.
This doesn’t apply to everyone. Elizabeth Olsen has mentioned a few times that scheduling has prevented her from being able to take on other projects but idk man maybe it’s just her.Snark about Winter Soldier’s memorability aside (he’s really popular in fandom so huh?) Sebastian Stan has mentioned Marvel helped him get to a better position and transition from TV to movies. Chris Evans was languishing trying to become big and he has massive financial freedom now to do anything he wants. The fact that his recent movies aren’t good doesn’t change that. Anthony Mackie is so prolific. Hemsworth is an action star and Pratt in multiple franchises and none of that would happen without either unknown Hemsworth and TV actor Chris Pratt getting Marvel exposure.I’m tired of the MCU but the actors I mentioned aren’t in the same boat as, say, Brie Larson who won an Oscar and then did Marvel. Some people needed Marvel to get them in the conversation.
As an aside, it’s always fascinating how men have a special distaste for things/characters/shows where the majority of fans are girls who are really intense about it. I see it over and over again and it happened with WS lol. So interesting!
This just in. Person who made a lot of money from Disney tells other actors to not do that.Seriously Chris Evans had a much better take which was the advice that RDJ gave him. “You make these movies so you can afford to go make the movies you want to make”.
downey didn’t even take his own advice there.
He did, but it turned out the movie he wanted to make was… Doctor Doolittle.
‘7 for them, 1 for nobody’
Sure he did, RDJ really wanted to make both The Judge and Doolittle.
just because he was passionate about being dr doolittle doesn’t mean it was a passion project. it was still a 175 million dollar (attempted) blockbuster that he probably got paid 40 to be in. ditto the sherlock movies. it also sucked!removing the blockbusters (mcu or otherwise) that he made something like 300 million dollars off of, he did the judge, due date (which was also going after hangover blockbuster numbers) and a brief cameo in chef. that’s it for 10 years.he did far less prestigious or interesting projects compared to his mcu contemporaries like scarlett johansson or mark ruffalo during the same time period. shit even tom holland did more.and i mean, hey, do your thing. get paid, no judgment. but don’t act like he was doing ‘one for them, one for him’. i’m excited to see him back in oppenheimer, and i hope it leads to him doing more interesting work.
But it *was* a passion project for him and Susan. They did not make 40M – they deferred most of his acting fees and almost all of their producing fees in favor of gross participation (almost definitionally making it a passion project) and they took a relatively massive bath on it.
I liked him in Restoration, and Richard III, but I guess those were both pre-MCU
You know the kind of actor “just give them one” works for? Harrison Ford. Are you a Harrison Ford?
I’m barely even a Chevy Chase.
thanks for the advice, I’ll remember that
Marvel can sign me to a 100-picture deal if they want, I’ll take it.
Didn’t Chris Evans get $300K for the first Captain America movie? You bet I”m going to sign a multi year contract with pay attached to box office takes.
It’ll always be wild to me how many really bad film roles Olsen turned in before she made just a SHOCKINGLY good showThat’s the power of writing folks
That’s why we may never have another saga of movies like Avengers, at least for a long while, because the amount things that have to go just right with so many talent involved is crazy. And we only see the characters in the movies but these actors are people who not always want to make such a long, multi-year commitments (they have the huge privilege of being able to do that) also they handle themselves as a whole company so of course they will negotiate when possible. Marvel and I guess Fiege made it possible for the first MCU saga but now that the actors know what they’re would be getting themselves into, the negotiations will be harder and more expensive, add to that the current writers’ strike (and I believe the Actor’s Union was still thinking about getting into the action) and you get that things like that saga will be very hard to happen again for a while.
And it’s sad for us the fans and movie-goers but for better or for worse, Hollywood is very unforgiving industry, one could hope it was more about the art and passion projects but that’s not how it works.
lol… woefully naive bs.
Where would be?
I gave up on the Marvel “universe”. Same with pretty much any movie that has a part 3, 4, 5 etc. After about the 2nd movie, they to me are all the same.
Something she’s said she learned from having been on the sidelines of her sisters’ career is that “no” is a full sentence.
I’m not sure why anyone would try to build a multi-picture arc a la MCU without locking in some of the talent….
I mean given that a popular fake end-credits tag for Quantumania online was a clip of Wanda bursting out from the rubble, I’d say she’s a good person to take advice from at this point. She’s done very well for herself in the MCU.
I’ve been on a nostalgia trip from a commenter posting a pic of Mary-Kate and Ashley on here. I’m 32 so more or less the perfect age to be nostalgic for them. I just wanted to say…. I remember in the early 2000s watching a bit on Comedy Central which was essentially a countdown to when Mary-Kate & Ashley were set to turn 18 years old. And then one the countdown reached zero a bunch of older men pounced on them. And I recall seeing that joke done more than once in another format somewhere along the lines….. that was creepy as hell! The implication that a tonne of older men are waiting outside highschool graduations for girls to turn 18 is so gross. The early 2000s were awful how did that make it on TV. Gross.