Nobody expected Sean Gunn to find himself at the center of one of the earliest storms to emerge during the joint strike action that’s got both actors and writers on the picket lines, but it’s probably best to expect the unexpected seeing as the entire industry has just been turned upside down.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe veteran went to town on Netflix over the lack of royalties he receives from his time on Gilmore Girls, which has proven itself to be one of the streaming service’s most consistently bingeable hits ever since it first acquired the rights.
However, Warner Bros. are actually the ones in charge of payments emanating from the series, causing the initial video where he aired his grievances to be deleted. The internet being what it is, though, conspiracies immediately emerged claiming that Gunn had accused Netflix of being the culprits in an effort not to step on the toes of the studio that employs his brother, with James obviously the current co-CEO of DC Studios.
It’s ludicrous – as most far-fetched allegations surrounding the elder Gunn sibling tend to be – but Sean nonetheless indirectly (and most definitely inadvertently) addressed the situation when he called out The Hollywood Reporter for deleting the video without clarifying that he’d never used the word “residuals” once.
He then followed it up with a video where he elaborated further, nothing that “it’s true that they pay a licensing fee to Warner Bros. and then Warner Bros. pays residuals from that licensing fee, which is a very small amount, particularly for a show that’s been off the air for a long time. But when the show is a huge success and they generate millions of dollars of profits for Netflix, we don’t share in any of that.”
His point still stands, then, but would it really be social media if there wasn’t at least a hint of conspiratorial scuttlebutt that doesn’t hold a single drop of water?