Without weighting in on OSC's views (as those are well covered elsewhere), I thought I'd point out something regarding the salaries and pay of those who worked on the movie, the support of which keeps coming up.
For anyone working on the film, stagehand, technician, engineer, whathave you, those people are already paid. They collect a salary throughout the years they're working on the film. They don't go unpaid until the movie releases, and hope for the best.
So for all of those men and women "in the trenches", they're a sunk cost, and won't feel the financial effects of how well the movie does or not. This is why some production houses end up posting losses on films. Even in those industries, the effects on those people are negligible. Movies are a journeyman industry, and quality work on a film is independent of viewer's end perceptions of it. By the time the movie is ready for release, those professionals have already moved on to other projects.
In fact, those who will feel the effects most keenly are not those at the bottom, who are already paid, but those at the top who's income is coming from the sales now that the film is completed. For OSC, who is most assuredly receiving royalties, this could be in the form of a much reduced paycheck. For the backers of this project, it could be a much smaller profit margin than anticipated, or even a loss.
A lot of film studios pay crew bonuses for films that succeed at the box office. So a boycott in this case might actually take money out of the pockets of the rank & file.
For anyone working on the film, stagehand, technician, engineer, whathave you, those people are already paid. They collect a salary throughout the years they're working on the film. They don't go unpaid until the movie releases, and hope for the best.
So for all of those men and women "in the trenches", they're a sunk cost, and won't feel the financial effects of how well the movie does or not. This is why some production houses end up posting losses on films. Even in those industries, the effects on those people are negligible. Movies are a journeyman industry, and quality work on a film is independent of viewer's end perceptions of it. By the time the movie is ready for release, those professionals have already moved on to other projects.
In fact, those who will feel the effects most keenly are not those at the bottom, who are already paid, but those at the top who's income is coming from the sales now that the film is completed. For OSC, who is most assuredly receiving royalties, this could be in the form of a much reduced paycheck. For the backers of this project, it could be a much smaller profit margin than anticipated, or even a loss.