So Carano sued Disney early last year, and she had Elon Musk among many others in her corner. And today Disney/Lucasfilm capitulated and settled with Carano out of court.
GeekTyrant, one of my favorite websites, has the details of the settlement (or at least which details the parties are allowing to be publicized).
Not only has Disney backed down, they have also taken a conciliatory stance toward Carano, and furthermore have said that they would be willing to work with her on future projects. Which sounds like more than what Carano had aimed for. I know that her Star Wars character Cara Dune was immensely popular with fans, many if not most of whom sided with Carano after her firing. I don't know if there is going to be room for Carano in the current Mandalorian/Ahsoka part of the Star Wars mythology (The Mandalorian and Grogu motion picture is due out in less than a year) but anything is possible, I suppose. Or it could be that Carano's Dune gets her own project... which was something that was slated to happen before Disney/Lucasfilm dismissed Carano and slammed her as a person. Would Carano be up for that? Maybe.
I might be tempted to sign on with Disney+ again, if this move by Disney is an indicator of the company moving away from identity politics. That is certainly something that has impacted the company's bottom line well beyond what has happened within the Star Wars franchise (especially The Acolyte, which if Disney was smart they'd bury that show beneath the Disney Vault and never let it see the light of day again). There are a few things that Disney has done which I have been sincerely interested in seeing (live-action Grand Admiral Thrawn is one of them) but haven't because of my own boycott against the company. If Carano is open to working with the company again, I might be open to giving the company a little bit of a chance, too.
2 comments:
Disney learned that it can't exercise selective censorship. If Pedro Pascal can be allowed his liberal comments then Gina Carano must be allowed her conservative comments, on her own media as you stated.
This isn't enough to make me get Disney+ but I'm willing to watch the company and see if this is going to be a continuing trend. In the meantime Lucasfilm is doing right by admitting in a fashion that they did Carano wrong.
Perhaps Disney is poised to enter an era when it realizes it's not good business to honk-off maybe over half its potential audience. The company lost a *heap* of money with its recent Snow White remake. And its latest Pixar movie (I forget the name of it, which shows how bad the situation there has become) has lost money too. Even its Marvel movies haven't had the returns that Disney has been accustomed to (Fantastic Four is practically an outlier).
Sooner or later the company is going to have to decide whether or not it is willing to lay aside its personal politics and instead return to producing entertainment that appeals to MOST audiences. Catering to a small minority no matter how overly vocal those are, is not good business by any measure. Other companies are beginning to step away from "diversity, equity, inclusion" policies and Disney should be no different.
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