Former 'Walking Dead' Showrunner Frank Darabont Suing AMC for Millions
Credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Frank Darabont has long suffered from bruised feelings over his ouster from The Walking Dead, a series he was crucial in bringing to AMC. Though it's been two years since he was given the ax, Darabont is now suing the network for breach of contract, a lawsuit that seeks tens of millions of dollars in unpaid profits.
The suit, filed Tuesday in New York state court, implies that a disagreement over Darabont’s profit participation could have been the reason for his abrupt, unexplained firing in July 2011, mere weeks into production on the show's second season, and just two days after Darabont appeared at San Diego Comic-Con with the cast to promote the series. AMC never offered a public explanation for Darabont's firing, nor did they explain their rationale to Darabont himself.
“AMC’s conduct toward Frank to date has been nothing short of atrocious," said Darabont's lead lawyer Dale Kinsella in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "Unfortunately, the fans of The Walking Dead have suffered as well by being deprived of his creative talent."
Darabont and his agents at CAA assert that the former showrunner has not seen a single dollar from his agreed-upon profit participation. Details from The Hollywood Reporter:
The suit says that as of September 2012, two years after its premiere, AMC — which both produces and airs Walking Dead — claimed the show was running a deficit of $49 million. An alleged sweetheart deal between the network and its production arm “is clearly designed to ensure that [Darabont and CAA] never see that first dollar,” the complaint alleges.Darabont's lawsuit is the latest in a long line of so-called "vertical integration" cases in Hollywood that arise when the producer of a TV show also distributes it via an affiliated entity that pays a license fee to be shared with talent. License fees are supposed to be negotiated between producers and distributors to reflect the fair market value of a given series. But litigation brought by producers of hit series including Home Improvement, The X-Files, Will & Grace and Smallville have alleged artificial manipulation of license fees between "vertically integrated" companies to minimize or eliminate payments owed to talent. "This practice, known as 'self-dealing,' is at the heart of this dispute," the Darabont lawsuit alleges.
According to the suit, AMC initially agreed contractually in September 2009 that the series would be produced by an unaffiliated studio such as Lionsgate or Warner Bros. Darabont would receive as much as 12.5 percent of that entity’s profit after standard industry deductions.
When Darabont delivered the script that was the basis for the first six-episode season, however, the suit alleges AMC decided to produce and broadcast the show in-house. Darabont’s representatives at CAA and the Jackoway Tyerman law firm agreed only “after gaining assurances from AMC that Darabont would obtain protections against improper self-dealing,” the suit alleges. Those protections included a commitment by AMC to "pay" its studio an "imputed" license fee comparable to what the show would get if it were made by an independent studio. Talent lawyers typically ask for such assurances.
According to the suit, Darabont repeatedly asked AMC to explain the terms of the agreement, but the company wanted to wait and see how The Walking Dead would perform first. Once the show debuted and became a smash hit, AMC came back to Darabont with a lowball offer that the suit describes as “an unconscionably low license fee formula” designed to ensure that the show would never be in profit. "AMC capped the license fee in perpetuity at the lower of 65 percent of the costs of producing the series or $1.45 million per episode, meaning that there would be a significant deficit on every episode produced for the life of the series."
Put plainly: "Because of AMC's outrageous and improper formula, the profits pool in which [Darabont and CAA] participate may always be in deficit no matter how long-running and successful the series is," the suit claims.
So basically, AMC sacked Darabont to save money, yet they ended up not actually investing the money they saved back into the show that was the network's biggest hit, as evidenced by a second season that was plagued by a threadbare budget.
The lawsuit goes on to claim that AMC "fired Darabont without cause shortly before Season 2 aired precisely in order to avoid its contractual obligation to pay him increased profits (which vested fully at the conclusion of Season 2) and to avoid its obligation to negotiate to hire him as showrunner for Season 3." The cost-cutting measures didn't just extend to Darabont either, as AMC is accused of hoarding the 30 percent production tax credit Walking Dead receives for shooting in Georgia, instead of putting the extra funds back into the series.
So shots have been fired, and Darabont is going for the jugular: in addition to the millions in damages he's seeking over The Walking Dead, Darabont is also asking for a cut of both Talking Dead as well as the upcoming scripted companion series AMC is working on developing.
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