With all the strike talk lately surrounding the Writers Guild of America as their contract between the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers expires on October 31 a blow that is sure to only add fuel to the fire was dealt recently.
I am sure many of you know about Peter Jackson’s legal goings on with New Line in regards to the accounting on Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, in which Jackson’s suit against New Line alleges that he has not received proper accounting of income from the film. Well, U.S. Magistrate Steven Hillman ordered New Line Cinema to pay $125,000 in sanctions over the mini-major’s failure to provide documents related to the film’s revenue stream in its legal battle with Peter Jackson over “Lord of the Rings” accounting.
Hillman said in the ruling that New Line may have destroyed documents and failed to search for documents and emails it was required by the court to produce, and cited a number of examples in which the searches were “haphazard.” None of this bodes well and certainly cannot be exclusive to New Line alone as I have never believed reported film budgets from the studios.
The reason for contract disputes stems from the WGA’s refusal to accept a proposal of which the AMPTP insists that its members can no longer operate under a system of deficit financing. The WGA believes Hollywood accounting to be unreliable and this latest ruling is certain not to improve their opinion.
As for the New Line ruling things aren’t anywhere near concluded as Hillman’s ruling instructs the studio to retain a document retrieval vendor within three weeks. New Line reps had no comment for Variety.
