OFF BEAT: Monsters depicted in 'Godzilla' lawsuits
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With all due respect to the 60,000-ton radioactive lizard, the producers of the next “Godzilla” movie claim the film's real monsters are the studio executives trying to oust them from the production.
In a lawsuit filed on Thursday in a Los Angeles County Superior Court, producers Dan Lin, Roy Lee and Doug Davison accuse executives at Legendary Pictures Productions L.L.C. of reneging on written and oral agreements to pay them for securing development rights for a “Godzilla” remake and include them in the production of the movie, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The producers claim that Legendary Pictures executives orally agreed to pay the producers a $25,000 development fee, plus fixed compensation of $1.3 million and 3% of the film's first-dollar box office gross, according to court documents. The producers also claim that the studio agreed in emails to keep them on as producers throughout the film's production.
The producers' suit against Legendary Pictures is a cross-complaint filed in response to a lawsuit filed by the studio on Jan. 9, in which it claims that it is only obligated to retain the trio as producers if they are “deemed to be engaged” in the film's ongoing development. The studio argues in its lawsuit that the producers have “offered little to the ongoing production of the film,” according to court documents.
