Cinematical

You remember that Jan De Bont flick John Cusack signed on for ages ago? The one that was going to give us a 51-minute chase scene? It was appropriately named Stopping Power, and it had so much flipping power that it stopped its own production back in October. Co-star Melissa George then swore it was still in the works, but that never went anywhere, and now Cusack is pissed. TMZ reports that he's filed a lawsuit against Intermedia Film Equities USA (you can see the documents on the site).

According to the actor, the company convinced him to star in the ill-fated film, guaranteed that he would be paid $4.5 million, even if the movie didn't get made, and finally, that all of his expenses would be paid, which includes $50k to cover the cost of having his staff on location. Cusack's lawyer, Marty Singer, says that John got his butt to Germany, started production, and then was told that the company couldn't afford the guarantee. So, they're claiming the company fraudulently made these promises, and then wanted to renegotiate for a lower amount after ensnaring him. Johnny is looking for $5,600,000 plus punitives.

Will John win? Or, will Film Equities have the final stopping power?

In August, I posted that Jeff Goldblum's mockumentary called Pittsburgh was finally getting released. The flick focuses on Goldblum as he takes a role in The Music Man for the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera "out of love, both for the venerable musical and for his fiancee, Catherine Wreford, a Canadian actress who must get a job or risk losing her visa." Now Jam! reports that one of the women in the movie is trying to stop it from airing on cable or being distributed unless her scene is cut from the movie.

Debbie Sue Croyle is a stagehand who rubbed some alcohol on Goldlum, and then blew on it to dry it so that she could tape a microphone to him. She says she was humiliated because of a double entendre/sexual innuendo he used in this scene -- certainly not the most incendiary reason to start a lawsuit. She reportedly asked the producers to either donate money to an organization that helps the mentally handicapped, or cut the scene. Since they never got back to her, she's suing for $4 million in damages.

That's one heck of an expensive innuendo! If anyone of you have seen it, please tell me what this so-called humiliating comment is, because I can't think of anything worth $4 million, especially after she signed a release for the movie. I wonder how much she would have sued for if he made the joke and accidentally spilled hot coffee on her.

It was almost precisely a year ago that Kimi V. and I climbed into a few balcony seats to enjoy a very well-attended screening of Black Sheep at the Toronto Film Festival. And we had a very good time with Jonathan King's wild and (ahem) woolly comedy/horror concoction. Although the New Zealand import didn't make all that much of a splash following its June 22 release date -- IFC released it in all of eight theaters -- an unrated edition is hitting DVD shelves on October 9, courtesy of the Weinsteins' Dimension label. (Horror fans should absolutely give it a rental.)

So now comes the unpleasantness: According to a report at Fangoria, the producers of Black Sheep might be getting sued by an aspiring screenwriter named Rafael Toba, who claims that his 2001 "Killer Sheep" screenplay was blatantly plagiarized by King & Company. Given that the 'nature run amok' sub-genre has been going strong for several decades now, couldn't it just be a case of coincidence? Nope, says Mr. Toba: "If it were any other animal, it could be so ... but sheep? Come on." Fango cites a Spanish newspaper where they say that legal proceedings are already underway.

Now, I know this probably wouldn't stand up in court, but Mr. King told me himself that "there are ten sheep to every one person in New Zealand." But I'm sure Spain has a lot of sheep as well. Regardless, the volume of sheep in each filmmaker's country is kind of beside the point, isn't it? I don't think Mr. Toba has much of a case, frankly, but I'd welcome another "killer sheep" movie any time. Lord knows I've seen enough Killer Croc flicks by this point. And I've long since lost track of all the bat, rat, spider and shark movies I've seen.

Boy, people love money don't they? This week has already seen its share of ridiculous lawsuits, but this one, another stemming from Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, seems particularly frivolous. You know the guy who runs away from Sacha Baron Cohen when "Borat" tries to hug him on the streets of New York? The one who is seen, as court documents put it, "fleeing in apparent terror, screaming for Mr. Cohen to 'go away'?" Well, that guy is suing 20th Century Fox, seeking "unspecified damages." He claims the filmmakers used his likeness without his consent, "causing emotional damage that he continues to suffer." Referred to as "John Doe" in the suit, but outed as 31 year-old Jeffrey Lemerond at thesmokinggun, Lemerond has apparently been in a permanent state of "public ridicule, degradation, and humiliation." Riiight.

This is, of course, not the first time the makers of Borat have been sued. The two frat boys who were shown in the film drinking heavily and being racist morons had their suit thrown out back in February (thank God). In November, two residents of a Romanian village sued Fox for $30 million, claiming the Kazakhstan scenes in the film, shot in Romania, depicted them as "rapists, abortionists, prostitutes and thieves." A man in South Carolina sued over a bathroom scene that didn't even make it into the film. Lemerond's scene was in the Borat trailer, where his face was pixilated. His face was visible in the film itself. Lemerond filed, and immediately withdrew, a nearly identical suit in January -- that one listed director Larry Charles, producer Jay Roach, and Cohen as defendants. His current suit names only 20th Century Fox. Lemerond has not asked for a specific dollar amount, but doesn't hesitate to point out the huge box office grosses and DVD sales of the film. I wonder what, if any, effect these suits are having on gathering footage for the planned Bruno movie?

You might think Judd Apatow's Knocked Up is a pretty "universal" story, right? (And I don't mean just the production company.) A booze-fueled one-night stand leads to an unexpected pregnancy, which in turn leads to an uncomfortable courtship and ultimately ... love. Pretty basic, right? Conventional even? Don't tell that to author Rebecca Eckler, because she's about to sue Mr. Apatow and Universal Pictures for stealing her story without credit, consultation or financial renumeration.

Aside from the basic similarities (which were first mentioned in the comments section of Erik's review), both the movie and the book share the same title. In the movie, the main female character is an aspiring television entertainment reporter; in the book she is an aspiring newspaper reporter. Both the film and the book also feature a "Jewish Dad" character. The similarities seem to end there, according to CBC Canada, but unfortunately it looks like Ms. Eckler definitely has a case here. How fortunate for her that she waited until the flick's $30 million opening weekend before expressing any concerns.*

Anyone out there read Knocked Up? Is this just a collision of common tales and coincidence? Or do we actually believe that Universal / Apatow knew all about the book and blatantly cribbed from it anyway? Seems like a pretty short-sighted thing to do, if you ask me. My guess is that a quick little out-of-court settlement is on the horizon.

* UPDATE: One commenter informs us that Ms. Eckler has indeed been writing about this situation in Macleans Magazine. Read her side right here.

* UPDATE Part 2: Another commenter points us to a blog that's been covering the Knocked Up ownership story for a while now. Check that out right here.

Even at 77-years-old, the daughter of screen legend Marlene Dietrich is as vigilant a watchdog over her mother's image as ever. The Guardian newspaper reports that Dietrich's daughter, Maria Riva has yanked permission from Universal (in the form of an injunction) to release Marlene Dietrich: The Movie Collection. Riva was angered to find that Universal had not packaged the DVD's as agreed, and considered it a serious enough contract violation that the estate may end up in court over it. The German head of the collection's estate said, "This is important for us. Marlene Dietrich was and remains the only world star that Germany has ever produced. There is no other Marlene Dietrich - she is unique".

This is not the first time Riva has headed to the courtroom over the use of her mother's image. In 1999, she took Toshiba to court over a photocopier ad and then she sued EMI over bonus footage in a concert DVD. Universal hasn't really commented on the possible litigation, but their PR rep had stated that "It's been withdrawn due to a minor error on the packaging, but it's being sorted out". Luckily, there are already plenty of Dietrich films on DVD, because it might be some time before Riva lets Universal off the hook.

Maybe it was the lure of appearing alongside Susan Sarandon in Speed Racer that landed actor John Goodman in some legal troubles. Variety reports that German film company Constantin Film have filed a $3 million lawsuit against the actor over his failure to commit to the film version of the medieval legend of Pope Joan. The film has already cast Franka Potente as the lead in the story of a woman who managed to hide the fact she was female long enough to become Pope sometime in the 850's. Supposedly, she was found out when she gave birth during a procession from St. Peter's -- now that must have been an awkward walk home.

According to Constantin Film's lawsuit, Goodman had made a verbal agreement to play Pope Serguis. Goodman's legal representation has dismissed the lawsuit as "frivolous," and that even though Goodman had entered talks over the project, he added that "no agreement had ever been reached." According to the suit, Goodman's reps had contacted the filmmakers in March, but I guess it was not enough time since Constantin is suing for what they say are "significant sums" as a result of the delays of recasting. Constantin claims that Goodman had agreed to accept $500,000 for his role in the film, it makes you wonder what the Wachowski Brothers were offering.

Stan Lee Media, a company created by and formerly owned by comic book creator and legend Stan "The Man" Lee is suing Marvel Entertainment for a cool $5 billion. The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, states that Stan Lee Media seeks to assert rights to the revenue generated by Marvel off of Stan Lee Media properties. In other words, they feel they own a piece of, and are getting shafted on profits from, characters including Spider-Man, The X-Men and The Incredible Hulk. The basis for this assertion comes from an agreement signed by Stan Lee when he was with the company that gave rights to his characters to Stan Lee Media.

Lee himself is long since gone from Stan Lee Media, but the company asserts the contract he signed is still in full force and effect. "Stan Lee is no longer with the company, but the contract remains intact," said Jim Nesfield, who recently rescued Stan Lee Media from bankruptcy and is its CEO. "He has signed it and the contract is still in force." He also added in the article that Stan Lee himself may be forced to testify if the case goes to trial. Stan Lee declined to comment for the article but later made his feelings about the lawsuit known through a statement released by Marvel Entertainment: "I do not support this action and believe the suit to be baseless."

Actually, this isn't the first time Lee and Nesfield have had legal dealings according to the article. In January, Lee filed suit against Nesfield and two of his associates, alleging they illegally took over his former company -- Stan Lee Media -- and infringed on his trademarks and copyrights. So, there's some history here for sure. What it really comes down to is one thing: money. Superhero movies make money -- especially ones made from comic book characters like Spider-Man and The X-Men. So, its understandable that people like Nesfield may want to try and cash in -- whether its warranted or not.

If you've been following some of my posts recently -- and you should be -- I've been bringing you some of the latest bits of news regarding the trials and tribulations of would-be Internet content king YouTube. For the last couple years, the site has had huge numbers of users and generated millions of dollars of free publicity for Hollywood studios and their products. And even though the site has also had its share of troubles as well, it had still mostly managed to avoid anything really unpleasant -- that is, until now.

According to CNN, Viacom, parent company of MTV and Comedy Central, filed suit against YouTube and its parent company Google Tuesday. The suit alleges that YouTube has "almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times." If that's true, what does Viacom want from Google and YouTube in the way of damages? How about a cool billion dollars. Yes, I said billion. In addition to money, Viacom also wants an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement and to take down any and all Viacom-owned content from the site.

In a statement also released on Tuesday, Viacom said about Google and YouTube: "Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws." Harsh words. At the moment, this doesn't look like something that'll be settled quickly but I think it will be settled eventually. Although, by the time it is, I'm sure the copyrighted content Viacom is so interested in protecting will have shown up on countless other sites all over the Internet. So, in the end, Viacom 's lawsuit will probably accomplish very little and the only people that will really benefit are the lawyers.

Director James Cameron, hard at work on his sci-fi extravaganza Avatar, is the latest person to comment on the increasingly nasty legal battle between Peter Jackson and New Line over profits from The Lord of The Rings. Jackson, for those who haven't been keeping up with current events, accused New Line of deceptive accounting practices and demanded that the company submit to an audit. The resulting lawsuit managed to nix any chance of Jackson directing The Hobbit for New Line under their current management and time is running out for the film to be put into production before the rights switch hands again. Already there are rumors that Sam Raimi will be taking over the project before the contract expires in 2009. Premiere Magazine spoke with Cameron about the controversy because Cameron is planning to use Jackson's Wellington studio to shoot parts of Avatar.

Cameron compared the situation to his relationship with 20th Century Fox, saying that Fox "has always been very transparent financially. It's almost automatic that you do an audit." Premiere also claims in their article that Cameron "intimates that the easiest explanation for New Line's behavior is that it has something to hide", but there was no direct quote from the director on the subject. You can't blame Cameron for not going on the record; this lawsuit has already seemingly gotten one director blacklisted at a studio, so why tempt fate?

In an attempt to enter the new year in good spirits, Robert De Niro (and his team of lawyers) have sent a letter to the owner of independent website, Tribeca.net, claiming the site is dancing dangerously close to copyright infringement, as it pertains to the Tribeca Film Festival. For those who weren't aware, De Niro practically owns the New York City neighborhood, having opened two restaurants there as well as helping to launch the widely popular spring film fest.

However, Tribeca.net has nothing whatsoever to do with the film festival (apparently it's a website that encourages independent artists to create their own TV shows and short films in order to be showcased online ... or something like that), and so the site's publisher (Chuck Harris) has written a friendly little letter (in which he also created a movie poster with the words 'Raging Bully' splattered across the top) reminding folks that the domain name was registered six years before the Tribeca fest began. He then goes on to spit out site statistics that claim Tribeca.net is more popular than the official website for the Tribeca fest, and that this whole what-to-do can be boiled down to a nasty case of jealousy on De Niro's part.

While you might think De Niro is being a bit of a bully here (and he kind of is), Tribeca.net has also launched two festivals of their own, one dedicated to TV shows and the other to short films. And, though Harris claims to have registered the domain back in 1995, the site did not officially open up shop until this past June. So, who's right here? Should De Niro back off of a little independent website which helps promote local homegrown talent (something he himself very much believes in), or should Tribeca.net either change their name or put up a notice claiming they are in no way affiliated with the Tribeca Film Festival? What say you?

[via Hollywood Wiretap]

So in honor of the season of goodwill towards men, yet another lawsuit is on the way. First up was Jon Peters and a sexual harassment suit, and now Laurent Chalet, who was the Director of Photography for the award-winning documentary March of the Penguins is suing for directorial credit alongside Luc Jacquet.

Variety confirmed that Chalet has filed a lawsuit against the producers of the film. Chalet states that he shot most of the film with the second director of photography Jerome Maison during a 13-month production in Antarctica. Already talk of an out-of-court settlement have begun between the lawyers, but the producers are unwilling to budge on giving Chalet the credit. Producer Yves Darondeau stated "As director of photography, Laurent Chalet did a very good job in difficult conditions, but that doesn't qualify him for a director's credit -- The director has the idea, the point of view, tells a story and has the final cut. It is a very different job." Maison, who is currently working with Jaquet on his follow up The Fox & the Child, about a little girl who tames a fox, is standing behind the producers, and makes no such claims about directing Penguins. Darondeau isn't worried, stating "Unfortunately, when a French film does well, there are practically always lawsuits like this; It's become a fashion." The case is set to come before the court this February.

Producer Jon Peters has the makings of a Hollywood institution. The former hairdresser and personal manager to Barbara Barbra Streisand had the foresight to buy the rights to two of the biggest comic book properties (Superman and Batman) in Hollywood. For better or for worse, he was always a hands-on producer who some thought should have learned to keep his hands to himself. Peters has been immortalized in the book Hit and Run, about Peters and his partner's deal with Sony during Sony's disastrous foray into the movie business, not to mention Kevin Smith had some pretty good stories about tangling with the producer over a Superman script.

Yahoo! Movie News reported that a former assistant was suing Peters for sexual harassment during the production of Superman Returns. The woman charged Peters with some pretty sleazy behavior including exposing himself to her while her three-year-old daughter was in the room. The suit also accuses Peters of "creating a hostile work environment" -- considering the suit contains accusations of Peters climbing into her hotel bed uninvited, groping and offensive comments, "hostile work environment" seems like an understatement.

There has yet to be any comment from Peters about the accusations or the lawsuit. Peters has always had a reputation for being something of an "eccentric" when it came to his behavior, but since the lawsuit seems pretty serious, I would hope the guy will come to his own defense sooner rather than later.

Producer Saul Zaentz no sooner finishes one court case before he's back at it again. This time Zaentz has launched a $20 million lawsuit against Walt Disney Company, including the Miramax Films unit, over profits from the 1996 drama The English Patient.

Reuters reports that the famed producer of Lord of The Rings (1978), Amadeus, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest filed suit last Thursday at the Los Angeles Superior Court. Zaentz's suit accuses Disney and Miramax of failing to share the profits for the Oscar-winning drama. According to Zaentz's suit, "Like Enron, Tyco and WorldCom, Miramax has used fraudulent and unfair accounting and business practices to deprive (Saul Zaentz Co.) of its profit participation,". Miramax has claimed that they have yet to make back what it cost them to acquire, distribute and market the film, so according to them there are no profits.

Well, Zaentz must think 20 is his lucky number, as he sued and won for that exact same amount ($20 million, that is) in a 2005 lawsuit against New Line Cinema over profits from the Lord of the Rings films. Hopefully Zaentz has better luck with his lawsuit than he had keeping Peter Jackson on The Hobbit. Plus, something tells me Disney isn't going to like that Enron crack.

Now that you're probably sick to death of Borat and his various antics, we here at Cinematical would like to congratulate you for sticking by us (and our plethora of Borat coverage) over the past few months. Since you've been so kind to us, we'd like to reward you with yet another post on Borat ... but don't worry -- this one is definitely worth it. We think. And hope. Here's what's happening in the world of Borat today:

• Worldwide, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America Make for Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan has raked in $56.5 million at the box office and will test its legs this weekend when Sacha Baron Cohen goes up against his Talladega Nights co-star Will Ferrell and Stranger Than Fiction.
• Russia thinks Borat is more offensive than filthy porn and has subsequently banned the film from playing in the country. Cinematical promptly sent three bottles of vodka to the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography in an attempt to alter their perception decision.
• Two fraternity brothers from a South Carolina University want to smack a lawsuit on Borat after making drunken asses of themselves on camera, spewing racist and sexist slurs thinking they were taking part in a documentary that would not be shown in the United States. The boys claim they were fed alcohol and coerced into acting like morons, however it's our opinion that Borat should turn around and sue them for being the only frat boys in America not aware of Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat and Da Ali G Show.
• Finally, Salon has thrown up a great article called, "What's Real in Borat." It goes into great detail regarding a number of different scenes in the movie, how they were put together and what Borat's "victims" thought of the experience and the way they were portrayed in the film. Surprisingly, most got a good laugh out of the whole thing -- well, except for those frat boys. But we're sure an all-night kegger (on Borat's dime) could correct that situation without a bunch of stupid lawyer dudes getting involved.