Company of 'Mad Max: Fury Road' Director Sues Warner Bros. Pictures Over Multimillion-Dollar Bonus
"Mad Max: Fury Road" director George Miller has filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. over an allegedly unsettled multimillion-dollar bonus that the filmmaker was entitled to receive.
The legal dispute between Miller's company, Kennedy Miller Mitchell, and Warner Bros. stemmed from a signed contract that said the latter must pay Miller's camp a $7 million bonus if the "final net cost" of "Mad Max: Fury Road" was less than $157 million, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
The lawsuit was made public recently after the Supreme Court of New South Wales said that the case should be tried in Australia and not in California.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
In Miller's claims, the movie was within the said budget threshold thus making him eligible for the bonus. While the film reportedly went over its budget, the director insisted that it was only because of the studio's decisions that resulted in major production changes and in the delay of the movie's release. With that, the Australian filmmaker argued that he was still entitled to the $7 million bonus.
As for the early proceedings that started in September, Sydney Morning Herald added that Justice David Hammerschlag said Miller's company claimed Warner Bros. "made a series of decisions which caused substantial changes and delays to Mad Max, which led to additional costs and expenses and that [the studio] wrongly took them into account in its over-budget calculation."
Taking out the "additional costs and expenses" from the equation, the movie "came in under budget," Justice Hammerschlag reportedly added.
Miller's camp also argued that their signed contract with Warner Bros. indicated that the latter must first offer a co-financing deal with Kennedy Miller Mitchell once needed for the movie. However, Warner Bros. reportedly signed an agreement with RatPac Entertainment, thereby breaching another provision of the contract.
On the other hand, Warner Bros. is geared to face the lawsuit. The studio said in a statement: "We disagree and will vigorously defend against these claims."
