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Touhy/Oher reports seems to touch on a lot of culture war issues. Though it could just be a family feud.
They only became a part of his life when he was 17/18. But I guess they decided to become a forever family then. Photos for the next 6-8 years looks like a happy family. They put him in conservatorship at 18 instead of adopting. It gave them a bunch of legal rights over him. Sounds a little bad since he was an adult but it did make a formal tie. And let’s be honest a normal 18 year old often needs adults in the room. An 18 year old who never had a family life definitely needs it. Sort of gets down to whether they were acting in good faith or using him. I lean on good faith.
The movie I believe portrayed him as a little dumb. His childhood issues probably did limit him. By the time he got to the nfl he scored a 19 on the wonderlich. Which when I’ve looked it up before is like American average IQ and around 100. So not dumb just average.
He apparently wants more money now. The family and the author Michael Lewis seem to indicate that they never made much in the movie. Like $700k between all of them. While Oher indicates they got bank. Lewis says this just means Hollywood bad and writers aren’t getting paid. Fwiw Oher never got paid a lot in the nfl. As a first round pick he got 5 years 13.8. For nfl contracts I’d do a simple formula of guessing you get about half after taxes and agent fees. The big money in the nfl is from free agency contracts. He signed two. First one he didn’t finish but was $5/year and played one year. Then signed elsewhere at $3. He played well so they extended him immediately but he got hurt mid year and cut with 9.5 guaranteed. Lifetime earnings probably around $30-35. 15 after taxes and fees. If your life story become a movie that grossed $300 million I think it would be reasonable to think it could boost those earnings and would be meaningful.
The white savior storyline. I’m curious how much current politics could have soured what was a happy relationship. The family no doubt used him some and loved the having a football star in the family thing and doing things like getting draft picks taken together. From my own background I saw the same storyline as my football coach adopted a black kid who was a great athlete (I played midgets football with him and high school basketball). Would have been a Catholic version of the same story. Curious if current politics are ruining these types of relationships.
Slightly different topic but I tend to think the people who make it to play pro sports are significantly above group level IQ. Like Oher being 100 IQ. I just can’t see a 70-80 IQ functioning well enough to understand pro-sports concepts or being capable of training themselves to get there.
Hollywood Accounting. Whoever made money out of that movie, it's highly unlikely to be the family/people on whom the story was based. They may well have got a hefty payment, but it's doubtful to be in the millions. He probably did get cheated out of money, but this is (sadly) a family quarrel and let's be realistic here - like most sportspeople, he'd probably have burned through whatever he earned even if he had gotten his hands on every cent of it. That's not saying he's stupid or low IQ, but it seems to be how most (the exceptions being few) end up.
Hollywood accounting is largely a legend from the old days, and despite some real examples it was never as common as is sometimes implied (accounting tricks were commonly used for production finance and tax reasons, most creators who sold rights were paid cash). In the modern day, agents will make sure you get points up front or a substantial cash payment for IP rights.
For the most part in movies the people who make money are those who fund movies and some star talent (directors, star actors, occasionally others) that can bid up their price. Everyone else gets paid standard or union rates. This is similar to any other business.
The problem is that in entertainment an additional entitlement exists, namely the ‘right’ some people demand to revenue points even when they bear none of the risk for a production. In other industries this doesn’t fly, equity is offered either as part of compensation packages to attract talent or to keep it, there is no ‘right’ to it. And when an accountant or lawyer makes partner, they have to ‘buy in’ for several years before they start making a personal profit.
This (not AI or writers rooms) is actually the biggest sticking point in the current strikes.
I imagine part of the problem is that the guy is looking at "This movie made $300 million, I didn't get any of that, who did?" and pinning it on his family. But it is going to be the studios who take chunks out of that to cover marketing, distribution, etc. Even if that means $100-200 million of a profit remaining, that's going to the people who know how the system works and that you don't sign up for a flat fee at the start, you make sure you look for a share of whatever profits are made.
I would say Mr Oher took the up-front money, and is now expecting that his share should have been bigger, and nobody is explaining to him (or he's not listening to them) that this is not how it works when you make movies.
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