A lawsuit claiming breach of contract was filed against the GK Films, the production company behind the 2019 hit film “Bohemian Rhapsody,” over failure to compensate the screenwriter, Anthony McCarten, fully. Based on their contract, McCarten’s suit claims that he is owed “equal to 5% of 100% of the ‘Net Proceeds,'” and the film earned more than $900 million worldwide. GK Films has the last say in the matter according to the contract, his pay was to be “computed, determined and payable in accordance with Company’s [!] standard definition in connection with the Picture (subject to good faith negotiation, including any rider to the standard definition that Company customarily provides.”
McCarten says in his lawsuit, his “five points have not paid out a single dollar, because the Picture is $51 million in deficit-at least according to the accounting statements issued by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.” Therefore, he is requesting a third party make a full accounting of the film’s earnings, monetary damages to be determined at trial, a “judicial declaration of the parties’ contractual rights and duties in connection with the Writer’s Agreement alleged herein,” and a full accounting of the film’s proceeds.
The suit says that “all of McCarten’s Contingent Box Office Bonuses paid out.” According to the lawsuit, the film was in deficit based on the distributor’s 20th Century Fox, the definition of ‘Net Proceeds,’ rather than GK Films’ negotiated “through good faith” with him. McCarten believes that GK Films had no intention in “figuring out what McCarten was owed at all.”
McCarten is also suing WGAW, Inc., which he believes handles business arrangements for GK Films. “Plaintiff is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges, that GK Films transacts business through WAGW, shares offices with WAGW, employs the same employees and officers, and has the same principal,” the suit says. “Accordingly, in doing the acts alleged herein, WAGW, Inc. was acting as the agent, principal, employee, or alter ego of GK Films.”
– Excerpt from an article for The Wrap by Ross M. Lincoln. Read the full article here.
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