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The Lawsuit of the Rings
securitas writes "The New York Times' Ross Johnson reports that Lord of the Rings trilogy director, Peter Jackson, is suing New Line Cinemas for underpaying him by as much as $100 millon. The lawsuit filed Feb. 28 alleges that New Line committed fraud. Jackson 'reportedly receives about 20 percent of the gross revenue realized by New Line for the trilogy, minus expenses such as taxes.' Jackson's lawyer confirmed that of the more than $4 billion that New Line collected from revenues, merchandise and licensing, Jackson has received 'almost $200 million to date from New Line for the trilogy.' If the opening line doesn't make you want to read the article, I don't know what will: 'What if Frodo Baggins, instead of confronting the evil empire in "The Lord of the Rings," just got himself a lawyer and sued?'"
It has nothing to do with whether or not he *needs* the money. If it's in his contract he's entitled to it, period.
How many folks out there would appreciate their employers under-paying them because "they had already been paid enough", or some such non-sense?
So let me get this straight.... he doesn't deserve what the contract you signed with him says because he can already choke all the worlds hippos with his cash?
Says one of New Line Cinema's lawyers FTA:
"..there's a certain piggishness involved here. New Line already gave him enough money to rebuild Baghdad, but it's still not enough for him."
Why does it matter if he already has tons of money? How is that an argument to not give him what you owe him? You can rip him off because he's rich already?
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
Well, it's not about how much money he has, but how much he legally contracted for with New Line Cinemas. The real problem is that this sort of thing goes on all the time, such as with musicians getting bilked out of some of the money they are owed for royalties. Peter Jackson simply has enough money to be able to effectively sue for what he is owed. Your ordinary musician usually can't even see the books to see how much they are really owed, let alone be able to effectively sue for back royalties.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
From TFA:
"Peter Jackson is an incredible filmmaker who did the impossible on 'Lord of the Rings,' " this lawyer said. "But there's a certain piggishness involved here. New Line already gave him enough money to rebuild Baghdad, but it's still not enough for him."
I think that statement falls under the Ad Hominem fallacy category.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
this lawyer said. "New Line already gave him enough money to rebuild Baghdad, but it's still not enough for him."
It doesn't matter if new line gave him $1 or $1 billion. If it is not what his contract says he gets then it doesn't matter if it is too much money. Shouldn't a lawyer be keenly aware of that.
As for what he should get. It seems that he is complaining that the rights to the toys he made were sold below market value to a sister company of newline. If he wanted to get revenue from the toys he should have added a clause in his contract. On the one hand I am disgusted at newline trying to hide money, on the other I don't feel all that bad for Peter Jackson not getting $100M in toy sales.
Just another example of huge conglomerates not serving the country's best interest anymore. Time to start revoking some corporate charters if you ask me!
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
"Peter Jackson is an incredible filmmaker who did the impossible on 'Lord of the Rings,' " this lawyer said. "But there's a certain piggishness involved here. New Line already gave him enough money to rebuild Baghdad, but it's still not enough for him." Sure it's a lot of money. But his contract was for more. I like how they think they have paid him enough and NOT what his contract was for. And then turn around and say it's piggishness
If it wasn't Peter Jackson, people would be raising all sorts of "greedy pig" ruckus.
Doubt it. Because even as greedy a pig as the director might seem for making well into nine digits and still wanting more, the studios are EVEN GREEDIER PIGS for trying to keep the director's money for themselves.
If there's no Little Guy to root for in this case, there's at least still The Smaller of Two Giants.
It's a pretty standard deal for films, no matter how successful, to fail to make a "profit". There are a wide variety of ways that the studio manages to orchestrate this. There is a nice article here that outlines most of them.
Reading through all the little tricks and traps is a little frightening - things like the legacy "only 20% of actual home video receipts are booked, the remaining 80% goes to the studio as 'costs'", or the blanket exclusion of 50% of gross reciepts for merchandising and music are pretty blatant scamming. The rest is more subtle, but really just as bad. Read the whole thing, it's worth it.
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I do not endorce or condone piracy, but if the movie houses hoard the cash from the big shots, imagine what happens to the average joe camera man, producer, artist, CG programmer, etc. How does buying the flick "help the little guys" ? Transversly, how does DLing a flick hurt them?
It seems to me that there is a big problem with media integration today. The big media empires are interested in merchandising an idea to death. They take a popular (and sometimes unpopular) story and transform it into every medium possible: books, movies, TV shows, music, Musicals, toys, icecapades, etc. Just look at what disney does to its movies. You will see it spun-off in every possible way within their own company to make money (Disney Channel, RadioDisney, Disney Books, etc.)
And while I don't really have a problem with this, I just fear that it ultimately creates a dirth of new ideas that take off because the large media empires favor existing popular concepts rather than take a chance on something new. This coupled with media consolidation is a bad thing, as it means the outlets for new and creative ideas are few and far between.
Indeed. Even if they lose this lawsuit, Newline and Time Warner will still be raking in the cash from these movies. I'm sure they'll rake in some more if they have Jackson do the Hobbit too.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
There really shouldn't be any mixed feelings. We should not call Peter Jackson greedy, we should not say that New Line "bet the farm" - because honestly, if the movie tanked they would still be around. All you have to do is look at the facts: Peter Jackson had a contract, New Line is trying to violate that contract, hence New Line is in the wrong. The one line their lawyer said about Jacksons "Piggishness" is flagrant and I would hope to get better out of a lawyer. New Line, if anything is the greedy bastards here. Jackson just wants his due. He helped make New Line 4 Billion dollars.
Imagine this - you have a contract with your boss that any new inventions you make, you get 2.5% of the gross profit (remember no gross profit = no paycheck). You make your boss an invention that gets him 10 billion dollars. You are entitled to 250 million. They want to give you half of that because they think half is more then enough... How would you feel? Also remember, it was your reputation on the line.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
...and ignoring that there may well be a big breach of contract here, ask yourself this, "would it be okay if a corporation used open source code in a product and released 75% of the source? Would that be enough?"
I think now you see that it is a matter of the contract, the fine print, etc., and not some inane knee-jerk response of "he got enough".
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
more like covering up for the fact hes getting screwed, whether or not he has enough money already.
The problem in principles here. If i were getting screwed out of 100 million, even if i already had 200 million, i'd be pissed. If Bill Gates or Carnegie let big chunks of money slide because they already had enough, their companies might not have succeeded.
Besides, maybe he was expecting that money so he could donate it somewhere. You never know.
This kind of thing happens all the time. It's really rediculous, I mean, if you pay someone $200 million dollars, and hold back another billion, obviously they are going to have the resources to sue you. It would be quite annoying, though. Waiting years to get your personal A380 or whatever you were planning on spending all that money on.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
There's a growing backlash against the increasing concentration of wealth at the top.
Power to the Peaceful
The MPAA goes on and on about how P2P is hurting the artists....but they never mention what really goes on. If PJ can't get paid, what hope for the smaller musicians/actors?
No sig today...
"It's all red tape and shady book-keeping anyway. Arthur Anderson and the accounting they did for Enron were amatuers compared to Hollywood accountants."
Amen! The correct term, however, is not "shady bookkeeping" but "outright fraud". The Hollywood studios have been functioning this way since the end of the prevalence of the studio "contract star" ended. The lure of an ephermeral percentage on the back-end instead of cash for services rendered has been a siren song many actors/actresses/directors/producers have been unable to resist. Two percent of a bottom line of zero is still worth nothing.
Only Hollywood accountants can take a movie that costs $100 Million USD to make, that generates $500 Million USD in revenue worldwide (theaters, TV and cable rebroadcasts, DVD rentals and sales) and have a zero (or negative) bottom line balance.
Of course, both the MPAA and the RIAA use the same dubious accounting methods. Artists and customers both continue to get screwed -- a 95% lockdown on marketing and distribution is still defined as a monopoly. Except to the Dubya regime and the neo-Con(artists) in control of Congress.
I agree with you about wealth concentrating in a few hands, and I also agree it's not a good thing.
But for a large corporation to decry paying an individual for the amount they contracted for -- one can hardly say this has anything to do with social equality. It's about corporate greed and profiteering.
Personally, I think those several billion dollars would have not been generated were it not for his (and his companie's) work.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The article is short on details. Without the exact wording of the signed contracts all we have here is an imperfect conversation.
I'm not surprised though, that this type of tactic is being used on purpose all of the time.
eTrade SUCKS
The books they send to the IRS don't break down individual movie profits, they report aggregate profits for the business, and are probably more-or-less honest. Or rather, as honest as any company's are, which is to say, you report as high profits as you can to shareholders, and as low as you can to the IRS, such that it will stand a modicum of scrutiny.
The reports they send to the film-makers are broken down for the individual film, and of course, how you attribute various costs and revenues are easier to fudge. Especially if, say, the studio is collecting fees for various services against the movie's revenues - i.e. transferring profits to the studio's bottom line while keeping the individual films unprofitable.
Actually, the biggest problem in such a trial would be that no matter the trial is about, it would lead to the ring being returned to its "rightfull" owner: sauron, since everyone agree that it is really his ring.