In a press release, the joint task force #DisneyMustPay have announced publisher BOOM! Studios will work with them to ensure writers who are owed royalties by Disney will be compensated. BOOM!, which holds the license for comics based on Fox productions Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, as well as more series acquired from Rupert Murdoch, stated they were not informed by Disney about the royalties owed to creators who’d worked on tie-in books at previous publishers.
“BOOM! Studios strongly support all creators receiving any reporting and royalty payments they are contractually owed,” said Filip Sablik, President, Publishing & Marketing BOOM! Studios. “When we have obligations, we honor them. We are happy to work with both the Disney Task Force and our licensor Disney to resolve the situation to everyone’s satisfaction.”
Mary Robinette Kowal, the President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), which formed the task force, commented “BOOM! Studios are not at fault here, and the #DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force is grateful that they have taken the lead with their cooperation. With their help, we’re able to speed up the process of locating writers who might have been affected by the rights transfer by Disney. I wish Disney itself was also willing to work with us.”
As well as Kowal, the #DisneyMustPay task force consists of authors like Neil Gaiman and Chuck Wendig, who are all acting as representatives of organizations like the Authors Guild, and the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW). It was formed after Alan Dean Foster, who penned the novelizations for Star Wars and Alien, reported he was no longer receiving royalties for both after Disney bought out Lucasfilm and Fox; his issues have since been resolved, but Disney have otherwise not commented on the issue of prior royalty arrangements for their new assets.
Disney inherited a minority stake in BOOM! Studios from Fox, and a Disney+ series based on the publisher’s middle-grade horror comic “Just Beyond” (created by R.L. Stine and the Matthews sisters) is currently in the works. The “Buffy” and “Firefly” comics were previously published by Dark Horse, which currently holds the license for Disney’s animated films; Dark Horse also published the Star Wars and Aliens books, the licenses for which have passed to Marvel, which generally does not pay freelance creators royalties.
