Book Covers - Payment?
- Thread starter Athena28
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As a general rule, no. Some of them, depending upon the specific terms of their contracts, might get likeness approval when their images are used on book covers or other products, but many of them do not have even that much control over their appearance on tie-in merchandise.
It's not only book covers. Or comics with lots of pictures of the actors/characters.
There is so much merchandise of all kind, that the actors would get millions, if the got money for every use of their face.
I just think about the Star Trek Costumizable Card Game (CCG), with cards for every minor character.
So I'm sure, it's part of their contracts, that their images can be used for any Star-Trek-related products.
It can also depend on how well known an actor is when first signing a contract. eg. LeVar Burton and Patrick Stewart had more control over their likenesses in products. Stewart has tighter likeness approval in comics and he once prevented the release of a Picard ceramic figural mug. Burton stopped a particular figure's release because it had an older hairstyle.
Nimoy's return for ST:TMP only happened because Paramount finally compensated him for that infamous Heineken Beer droopy-eared Spock billboard.
Nimoy's return for ST:TMP only happened because Paramount finally compensated him for that infamous Heineken Beer droopy-eared Spock billboard.
Of course, a gradual improvement. Union pressure over decades. Ditto residuals for syndication and home video.
Well most of the TOS cast signed away their rights shortly after TOS ended for a payout cheque, so for the movies it makes sense that the actors would be more controlling of their image seeing as their payout cheque’s were issued when they thought they would get more in payout than rerun/licensing fees.
In the early days, no one imagined that TV shows would go beyond one play-and-two-repeats.
I wonder if they'll ever stop reusing the same photo of Picard.
That's one of the things that annoyed me about Trek novel cover art: Many times it's just a publicity photo of Kirk, Picard, Spock, et. al photoshopped into a different background. Sometimes the art didn't even have anything to do with the story. It would be nice to go back to the days when Boris Vallejo used to create awesome unique cover art that actually featured original characters who appeared in that specific book.
Or how about the “Star Trek Nemesis” DVD disc art? The phot of Data is from the movie, but the image of Picard is from Season 6 or 7.
Which is doubly odd considering Patrick Stewart is not a man who looks extraordinarily different across seven or eight years, and it's just a dead-on face shot of him looking serious. They have exactly the same photo of him in the correct outfit from "First Contact." If the DVD packaging didn't crop to show his collar, you wouldn't be able to tell they'd used two different photos in the posters.
I've heard that on the comics, the actor's rights to approve their likenesses would only kick in on panels where they were appearing without any other characters. So the artists would often stick additional characters in there so avoid extra production time being taking up with getting approvals or potentially redrawing panels.
I'll shoot DC's former Trek editor Bob Greenberger a note. I'm sure he has some tales of likeness approvals to tell.
Yeah, I noticed that myself. Ditto for other members of the crew.
Actually the only character on a book cover that I can remember being 'aged' was Dr Bashir in the Section 31 novels and Typhon Pact novel he was featured on. I assume he was given a beard partly to be consistent with Siddig's then current appearance, then he appeared significantly older on the last Section 31 novel he was on.
I've been happy lately to see more ship oriented covers recently. Characters occasionally appear still, but it's more similar to some of the older novels. I have to admit, some of the Typhon Pact covers were less than satisfying.
Does Shatner get royalties from the Halloween movies?
I think the mask was altered enough -- turned inside-out and painted white and maybe modified some other way -- that it counts as a distinct creation. I certainly never recognized it as based on Shatner until I read about it (although I never actually saw the movies, just pictures from them).
As a horror film nut I have seen all the Halloween films and no, until I heard it was an old William Shatner mask I didn't know it was a Shatner mask. Had no one ever mentioned it, I doubt most people would have.
I was interested to find out that Rick Sternbach was an illustrator on Halloween II (1981) I believe it was. I think I remember reading somewhere that he put someone in touch with someone else because they needed a new mask, or something to that effect.
I always look for little things like that. The Omen was another film that put 2 Star Trek alum together (though long before their involvement in Star Trek), placing Stuart Baird (then an editor) with composer Jerry Goldsmith. And of course another favorite show of mine, Dallas, featured a number of Star Trek alum, including, I was fascinated to find out, DC Fontana, who wrote a number of early season episodes.
I also love driving my wife crazy, who is not a Trekkie, with bringing up Star Trek tidbits on shows she's watching (hey, that's Enabran Tain from Deep Space Nine...and son on). She used to love the show 7th Heaven and I took a special delight in telling her that the two main characters were both in separate Star Trek films (yuk yuk yuk).
Yep. Stephen Collins in TMP and Catherine Hicks in TVH.
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