The snipers in Marvel are nothing less than a legend amongst MCU fans, the legal team that is supposed to track down actors for accidentally spoiling details of the Marvel franchise while this happens on social media or while a press junket is on. As the standard goes across Hollywood, NDA’s are common amongst those that work well on the Marvel Studios production both behind the camera and in front of the camera.

 

“Legally, if you violate an NDA, you could be responsible for damages, legal damages, and potentially an injunction,” Sarker tells us. “If you threaten to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to release X information unless you negotiate this deal with me,’ or you could try to ransom. In that situation, the studio could sue you and say, ‘Hey judge, make sure this person doesn’t say anything because this could cause us irreparable harm,’ but that’s less likely to happen.”

Sarker has said that Marvel Studios movies almost make almost a billion dollars at the global and international box office, and the court found damages may be staggering. Moreover, he believes Marvel Studios is quite likely to take a practical approach.

Comicbook.com talked to former Marvel Studios lawyer Paul Sarker to talk regarding the business side of stuff, and he stated some quite daunting situations that might unfold for those who end up breaking an NDA of Marvel Studios.

“The other thing you risk is the relationship, right? Let’s say you haven’t been cast and they send you a script and you’re being tested, or they send you a link to some secure site where you can get a script and you can do maybe a table read or whatever online,” the attorney adds. “If you then leak that information, A) they could sue you, and B) they’re probably not going to want to work with you because you’re not someone that could be trusted. If they bring you in and give you more, they need to be able to trust you to sort of bring you in and on the team.”

There is one more thing, suggested by Sarker, that sometimes actors’ payment isn’t produced until further in the production process.

“If you’re breaching or you’re in violation of the contract, they don’t necessarily have to pay you,” Sarker continues. “So there’s a lot of risks there, but I’d say the biggest ones are alienating the relationship with the studio, because they can’t trust you. And then monetary damages.”

This brings the question — what does Marvel Studios’ NDAs look like, or what do they actually cover?

“They cover anything that is not public information that you get from the other side that you didn’t otherwise know or discover on your own, basically,” Sarker confirms.

Sarker also revealed that NDAs aren’t negotiable wholly, as a studio like Marvel could easily withhold scripts without having the privilege the protection of a signed NDA.

“From the studio’s perspective, you want as broad coverage as possible, so that if there is a leak, you don’t have to argue about whether it was confidential or not,” he concludes.

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