The Walking Dead: AMC Faces Lawsuit
The Walking Dead faces its toughest challenge yet, a lawsuit. The Walking Dead’s former showrunner Frank Darabont, who was fired by AMC after one season, has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit on Thursday. Darabont claims that he, and his Creative Artists Agency are owed “tens of millions of dollars” from The Walking Dead’s success.
AMC has responded back to Darabont’s claims by filing its 10 page response with the New York Supreme Court, and they think his lawsuit is “Baseless.”
The Network’s response is:
“We look forward to demonstrating through the legal process that this is a baseless lawsuit built on claims that have no merit.” AMC told the Hollywood Reporter
Darabont and his Creative Artist Agency also filed another complaint in December against AMC. He claims that AMC was paying a low licensing rate to the AMC affiliate that produced the show while AMC was making more money.
The lawsuit also includes that AMC was allegedly calculating net profits and accounting to its profit participants, and according to Frank Darabont, two years after the show first premiered, AMC had claimed The Walking Dead was running a deficit of $49 million.
“AMC uses what is known as “self dealing” modes of making money that is hidden from the cast and crew so they don’t have to share profits from the show, and AMC also worked out a deal where they sold the show to themselves.”
Darabont basically wants the money that was lost by AMC, which he calls an “artificially low fee” to be added to the amount of funds meant for The Walking Dead participants that Darabont used to be apart of.
Frank Darabont was the one who originally developed the The Walking Dead, which is based on the comic series written by Robert Kirkman. Creative Artist Agency also had a had in developing the show with Darabont.
Darabont wrote, directed, and executive produced the first episode of the show, and was the show runner for the whole first season, until he was fired in 2011 before the second season.
Its understandable why Darabont files this lawsuit now due to how well The Walking Dead has been performing lately. The Walking Dead is currently on their fourth season, and is also renewed for its fifth season due to stellar ratings. The Walking Dead is the bully to watch out for on cable television as they have beaten out their cable competitors. The show has even had higher viewership than the currently airing Sochi Winter Olympics, and Sunday Night Football back in October.
Hopefully this lawsuit gets resolved quickly before it brings The Walking Dead much more trouble. The Loss of The Walking Dead would be a crushing blow to all the fans.
