Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

tessgerritsen.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 130 posts

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#61

Post by petegrif »

greenyoda wrote: post #20
chrisbennet wrote: post #9

Even if they honor the contract she will get nothing besides being credited. Her contract states that she gets a percentage of the profits - and the movie will probably never make a profit. Return of the Jedi never made a profit "despite having earned $475 million at the box-office against a budget of $32.5 million" (Wikipedia "Hollywood Accounting") Very sad.

"Even if they honor the contract she will get nothing besides being credited." She mentions that the contract also entitled her to a "production bonus", which sounds like some kind of lump-sum payment if her book is made into a movie.

She would indeed get such a bonus.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#62

Post by bmh_ca »

spiritplumber wrote: post #24
tptacek wrote: post #23

Here's the whole ruling: https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/wb-gravity-... It's more complicated (of course) than Gerritsen makes it out to be. The Hollywood Reporter does a decent job of explaining the contours: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/warner-bros-knocks-... (and, in fairness, it's more complicated than WB makes it out to be as well). Most of the ruling concerns itself with the admissi…

No, if you buy a company, you buy it lock stock and barrel - that includes outstanding debts, existing deals, and obligations. Otherwise it'd be trivial to make a company go millions in debt, then sell it to an accomplice who would keep the assets and poof the debts. This still happens, of course, but there are fraud laws against it, and successful attempts when they happen generally require wriggling through a lot o…

> No, if you buy a company, you buy it lock stock and barrel - that includes outstanding debts, existing deals, and obligations.

It depends on what you mean by "buy", and what you mean by "company".

Companies can assume the assets of another in a number of ways. The two most common are share purchase and asset purchase. If you buy assets, you do not assume liabilities. Whatever you use to purchase the company may pay off the selling company's creditors, but the new company assumes none of those liabilities. In a share purchase the obligations generally travel with the company.

The assumption of liabilities can also depend on whether the company being purchased is bankrupt or insolvent, as in those cases the shareholder rights often cease and in any case with very few exceptions lower in priority to creditors. It is often left to agreement of the parties (selling company, purchasing company, and creditors) or a bankruptcy judge to determine the rights through purchase.

The above is an oversimplification and somewhat jurisdiction-dependent in the commonwealth, but the gist is that a company can (and many often do) assume the rights of others without obligations.

Readers may find the story on Old GM and New GM interesting. Here is an article by my friend and colleague David Skeel, who testified before Congress on the unfairness of assumption of assets without first satisfying obligations in the case of the GM/Chrysler bankruptcies: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023037453045763616...

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#63

Post by MichaelGG »

burnte wrote: post #2

This is alarming, but not surprising, especially in Hollywood. However, once they amend the complaint, I have a feeling WB will have a hard time arguing that both the contract gives them the rights to the story, and that the contract isn't enforceable or binding. This will be interesting.

It sounds like the stories are rather unrelated. The similarities are what, a female astronaut in space has problems? The film is basically a dumb action movie about a woman jumping around the world, while the book is supposedly about a medical issue.

Even if the director had saw her book and thought "cool setup, a woman in space", why should that be legally enforceable? Even the author admits there's no copyright claim involved.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#64

Post by zobzu »

tptacek wrote: post #47
ricardobeat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the part about the person who wrote the script for the movie being involved in the original project, based on the book?

The notion of an "original" product causally linked to the WB-produced film _Gravity_ assumes facts not in evidence. Gerritsen alleges that the film she worked with Katja on formed a basis for WB's film by dint of Cuaron's involvement in both projects. In the earlier project, Cuaron is alleged to have been "attached" to the project. In the WB production, Cuaron and his son wrote the entire screenplay. The film term o…

Which is what the lawsuit is based upon really - that's said, the title is the same, the story is very similar, and it seems extremely likely that the author is accurate, even thus it may be difficult to prove (and easy to disprove, WB can just delete all the files where she's mentioned during the acquisition and then she just has her own word for it, emails being easy to fake and all)

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#65

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #43
rayiner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the ruling concerns itself with the admissibility of various documents for the purposes of a dismissal ruling, which is complicated by the fact that the court has to stipulate all of the plaintiffs facts as true and still find no cause for a lawsuit in order to grant the motion. To add some more color: Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 only requires a complaint to allege facts, which if proven true, would m…

At one point the judge rebuts one of Gerritsen's arguments, regarding the nature of WB's control over New Line, by acknowledging "judicial notice" of WB's 10-K filings while refusing to evaluate them for truth. What does it mean to "take notice" of something without "considering it for truth"?

The court can take notice of the fact: "the SEC filing says WB took control of New Line."[1] It can't take notice of the fact: "WB took control of New Line." Here, we care about the actual fact of the merger, but sometimes we just care about what the SEC filing said about a merger or sale. For example, if a statute of limitations is in dispute, what matters is that the SEC filing says a merger or sale happened--putting investors on notice, not the actual truth of the merger.

[1] Although at this stage, the author merely has to allege, not prove, the fact of the merger. It appears she failed to allege the relevant facts in her complaint, and tried to get them in by referring to the SEC filing. But she should just be able to amend her complaint and allege the facts directly.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#66

Post by brazzledazzle »

spiritplumber wrote: post #26
burnte wrote: post #2

This is alarming, but not surprising, especially in Hollywood. However, once they amend the complaint, I have a feeling WB will have a hard time arguing that both the contract gives them the rights to the story, and that the contract isn't enforceable or binding. This will be interesting.

I had a similar problem a good while ago, on a much smaller scale, when a company that was buying land to put solar panels on it went bankrupt - essentially, they bought the panels, installed them on land that was actually belonging to another company that belonged to the crook's wife, and then declared bankruptcy after setting up some deal with the wife's company whereby it would get first rights to the assets (the…

This stuff does happen in the US at least. I've only heard stories, but always from the "technically guilty" (e.g. the guys that destroyed/burned things down as retribution). One thing that's consistent in the stories I've heard is that the crooks always failed to carry insurance. Their "cheap" nature extended even to protection policies on their own ill-gotten gains.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#67

Post by jonnathanson »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #44

Her contract stipulated she gets "based upon" and a percentage of net profits. Now I know nothing about Hollywood but I do know that if you have a percentage of the net then everyone you meet sees a great big L on your forehead. Almost no movie makes a net profit. You get a percentage of the gross or you are not taken seriously.

"You get a percentage of the gross or you are not taken seriously."

Correct, but you also have to be taken seriously to get a percentage of the gross. Not everybody who asks for gross points gets them. Generally speaking, you need to be on the A list, or have a killer agent, or have a property that incites a bidding war between studios.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#68

Post by wheaties »

spbaar wrote: post #57
comrade1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that does happen, in way. The most well-known was Zynga - when they were getting ready to go public they did a claw-back on their outstanding options and shares. They screwed over a friend of mine that was one of the early employees. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240529702046219045770183...

Can you shed a bit of light on the details or motivation? It's always bothered me how we never got a full picture of what happened. So they clawed back a portion of options from people who had been awarded options at one level then demoted? Was their motivation just for money? Because it seems like absolutely the worst possible thing for morale and recruiting and I can't imagine them getting back more than 50mm.

When you're about to IPO, you're not thinking about morale. You're thinking about money.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#69

Post by foxylad »

MichaelGG wrote: post #63
burnte wrote: post #2

This is alarming, but not surprising, especially in Hollywood. However, once they amend the complaint, I have a feeling WB will have a hard time arguing that both the contract gives them the rights to the story, and that the contract isn't enforceable or binding. This will be interesting.

It sounds like the stories are rather unrelated. The similarities are what, a female astronaut in space has problems? The film is basically a dumb action movie about a woman jumping around the world, while the book is supposedly about a medical issue. Even if the director had saw her book and thought "cool setup, a woman in space", why should that be legally enforceable? Even the author admits there's no copyright cl…

Remember this isn't about copyright - its that the original company had a contract for a film "based on" the book, and the company that bought out the first company is arguing that their film is not connected to the book to get out of honouring the contract.

But imagine another studio had made a film with a story so similar to the book; with the exact same title; and screenwritten by the guy who was down to direct the first project. I bet Warner Brothers would have sued them to hell and back, and the inherited contract would have been portrayed as solid as a rock.

Re: My Gravity lawsuit and how it affects every writer who sells to Hollywood

#70

Post by tjradcliffe »

ubernostrum wrote: post #40
ricardobeat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the part about the person who wrote the script for the movie being involved in the original project, based on the book?

Did you miss the part where this was a contract issue? Where the author of the book said, literally, "Yeah, Gravity is a great film, but it's not based on my book"? She's trying to argue that a contract she made with one company would somehow jump across multiple acquisitions, mergers and organizational changes and begin binding a different company that made a movie she admits wasn't based on her book. And that's why…

> would somehow jump across multiple acquisitions, mergers and organizational changes and begin binding a different company

"Somehow"? They would do so via a completely standard clause that enjoins any acquiring entity to honour the terms of the contract. I have never negotiated a contract that did not have a such a clause. Neither has anyone else who knows what they are doing.

Maybe she had incompetent representation. Maybe the arcana of this specific acquisition were such that any contractual obligations were effectively terminated.

But don't pretend for a moment that this isn't bog-standard, boiler-plate-level stuff. We know exactly how such contractual obligations would be conveyed across multiple acquisitions, mergers and organizational changes because we are used to writing contracts that specifically say "If you're acquired, the obligations under this contract are on the acquirer."

Post reply on HN