I’m not some kind of expert on movie licensing, don’t want to come off as knowing more than I do. But having worked on Alien and Predator (both with the same studio and people to be fair) my experience is that you can have a lot of different rights when it comes to actor likenesses depending on how they’re used. For instance, these can be all different scenarios with different approvals:
- using a clip of the actor from the film
- using the actor’s likeness in print media
- using an existing pre-approved promotional image
- an actor likeness that is an interpretation of them (hand drawn or otherwise)
I remember years ago at Expo talking with the Big Lebowski team about the backglass art. They were only allowed to use pre-approved actor images, but they were allowed to use Photoshop filters on them to get a more hand drawn feel.
But they had to basically document all the steps for the studio, to prove it was a Photoshop process, and not being hand touched up or altered. “First we used a mild blur, then this oil paint filter set to this, then we sharpened it, then we …”
I would not be surprised if the contracts for the Harry Potter actors were very different from the Predator actors. Studios are much more savvy about how they might want to use likeness rights for things now.
Basically all I’m trying to say is I don’t know anything about how this specific situation went down, just that it can be more messy and complicated than people often realize.