As the pic’s slogan said, “There are no clean getaways”. So actors get screwed out of dough not only happens all the time on indies but now even on faux indies that win Best Picture Oscars. Tommy Lee Jones is suing for $10 million which he claims is what he’s still owed for No Country For Old Men. News reports say the lawsuit against Paramount Pictures and N.M. Classics was filed Thursday in Bexar County District Court in San Antonio, Texas. And it’s a revealing look behind-the-scenes at Paramount accounting…
According to the San Antonio Express-News, Jones in the lawsuit claims he signed a contract with N.M. Classics on April 3, 2006, for a reduced upfront fee in exchange for backend and bonuses if the film did well financially. It wound up winning the Oscar and making $160M worldwide. As part of his contract negotiations, Jones insisted on favored nations with producer Scott Rudin and writers/directors/producers Joel and Ethan Coen regarding all contract terms, including the percentage of box office bonuses he would receive. But Jones argues that in December 2007 — a month after the film’s nationwide release — Paramount told him that the contract contained a “mistake” regarding the deduction for home video expenses. Jones claims the studio revealed it was aware of the supposed error before he signed the contract. On January 10, Paramount contended there was a second “mistake” made, this time in the formula to determine box-office bonuses. He says he was fraudulently made to render his services under a contract the company knew contained mistakes, though they didn’t inform him of them until after the movie had been made, by which time it was too late.
Jones wants an outside auditor to determine how much he is actually owed.
I smell a legal settlement, Western-Style.
I want an outside auditor to determine what exactly the hell was the point of his character’s dialogue at the end of the movie…
Paramount will offer him a couple of million to avoid any outside auditor from getting involved. No Hollywood studio wants any outsider looking into the arcane depths of studio book-keeping, for there only madness dwells!
Maybe this is why Paramount’s boosting their litigation department?
You said they were lawyering up. Maybe it’s to protect themselves, not sue.
Does that mean Karen Magid will have to defend the “mistakes” that were built into a contract written under her oversight?
When it comes to royalties, you can’t trust Paramount. That was the bottom line of the Art Buchwald lawsuit. Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America made $220 million worldwide and Paramount said the $40 million movie was still $30 million in the hole! That’s some creative accounting!
They signed the paper, they pay the money.
I’ve had contract disputes myself, where I was verbally told one thing, and then told if it wasn’t in the contract to forget about it. My mistake was I trusted people to do the honorable thing on their word. There is no honor in Hollywood.
So even if a mistake was made, too late to change it now, they should have caught it before the film was made. Why are they even pretending it’s going to break the bank to honor their contract? Maybe they will check their documents over more carefully in the future.
If there was a reverse of this scenario Paramount would wave the contract in the air and say, no mistakes, it’s down in black and white. I hope Tommy gets his money, and studios stop balking at paying creatives to make the product they sell.
@DH: I’d raise that and want the auditor to work out the point of the entire movie.
DH – ditto! Had the same WTF kind of moment that I had at the end of Vanilla Sky.
and yet, there’s support for unite for strength and pro-aftra, pro-merger people who are making the argument, essentially, “trust these people (the amptp – paramount, in this case) they’ll come back to us on this contract if it doesn’t work out fairly for us.”
people who say “go along to get along” to negotiations with these… thieves! not just recently – for decades! since the business began! actors take it in the shorts day in and day out and even tommy fucking lee jones gets ripped off by producers! and unite for strength says “make a deal” they say “lets not rock the boat” they say “let’s merge with aftra” – a union that’s been complicit in actors getting ripped off – for years!
actors – wake the fuck up! if YOU don’t stand up for yourselves and call bullshit on producers EVERY TIME they try to rip you off? you deserve everything you get.
fight. fight. fight. fight. fight. not just “to fight” but for your RIGHTS.
What I don’t understand is why an actor of his caliber wouldn’t have an attorney look over his contract to catch these “errors”?
I forgot all about that last scene.
I remember leaving the theatre and looking for a stranger in the audience I could go up to and ask “so, what did he say at the end?”
I would love to see the paperwork on this. Not on the smoking gun yet…
Why is he suing only Paramount and not Miramax? They coproduced the movie and Miramax distribuited it domestically.
Leno or Kimmel (possibly both) will put together a hokey spoof of Jones taking out the studio heads with an air pressure tank, after they decide their fate in a coin toss.
This story will be huge news for the next week or so and then be forgotten as Paramount decide to settle (with cash money) well away from prying eyes.
Then a few months after that we’ll hear that Tommy Lee Jones has signed Brad Grey to become his new manager and will star in the sequel to JJ Abrams’ hugely successful Star Trek ‘re-boot’.
Jones will play an older Klingon who drives a pick up truck and tries to kill Chris Pine’s Kirk by talking dryly about the ‘way things used to be’.
Whatcha got ain’t nothin new. This industry’s hard on people, you can’t get what’s coming, it ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.
And this is why Warren Beatty has always insisted, in the contract, on the right to bring in an independent auditor when he has points!
Paramount? Screwing people out of money? I’m shocked. Shocked.
Ahh, the promise of back end. They should call it, no back end in sight!
Those producer’s, butch of honest guys, huh?
I remember when this happened on Forrest Gump. Zemeckis and Hanks had deferred, and Paramount was dragging feet on paying them. As I remember it though they screamed and yelled before the Oscars, not afterward, and to avoid a stink Paramount started cutting them $5 million checks.
Why do these accounts and people at business affairs at the studios try to NOT pay people? It’s not like it’s coming out of THEIR paychecks. I guess they feel that they can gain a brownie point if they show the bosses they stiffed someone.
to lemme-
I will not speak about business affairs, but please check yourself when you speak of things you don’t know about accounting. Accountants are CREW, they are screwed only 2nd to Coordinators in this business, and that is only because they usually have a slightly higher start rate. They are required in most cases to join IATSE but receive no protection or set rates. They are directed to do what they do, they have no executive power, in most cases they configure your pay and then are told that this part of the deal is wrong and that crew member does not get that meal penalty and whatever other lie suits the suit at the time. But make no mistake that their job is on the line if they stand up as one person against corporate to save who… those actors that make 3 times her salary in one day. Oh or maybe that accountant should stand up for the grip who received OT, meal penalties and a gas bump – but is bitching because the PR didn’t match what ‘he thought’.
So to all of you who work in the business- nearly every cast and crew member on a show makes more money than the accountanting or office crew, so instead of acting like they are in colusion with the bad guy, maybe some of you should start supporting and using a kinder word about the support crew that orders your crap and then end up taking your crap all day too.
“oohla”
yeah. and aint it great to know hanks has sold sag down the fucking river because he cares more about his production company and shooting outside the country whenever he possibly can and avoiding residuals whenever he can and giving his “band of brothers” actors a one time buy out on the dvd, which will be selling for decades, rather than let them be profit participants in the dvd sales? and why? cause tom needs money? no – cause he’s a greedy arrogant fuck who doesn’t give a shit about sag actors – you know – the union that gave him his start and has covered every single film he’s done in his entire career.
Maybe I am naive to the doings but how is it that a guy who now runs the studio – a former artists rep – not be on the side of the artist and insist that deals be on the up and up?
Does Brad Grey turn a blind eye to this stuff now that he’s on the other side of the fence? How does he square that with his actors I would assume he courts?
Why would top talent do another project with Paramount after past debacles?
I realize the movie business is low margin (at least that’s what we’re all told) but does cheating and legal wrangling really make the difference?
I’ve never seen it, but it sure would be cool to have someone from business affairs do a “Pentagon Papers” leak and really let us see the goods.