Actor Gerard Butler, the star of the Olympus Has Fallen franchise, has sued the film's producers Nu Image and Millennium Film in a profits dispute over the original 2013 film that spawned the franchise.
Butler and his legal team filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that the actor is owed more than $10 million in profits after it ordered an independent audit. The audit had found the defendants “understated their own receipts and profits by over $11 million, including by failing to report approximately $8 million in payments to Producers’ own senior executives.”
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, Olympus Has Fallen centred on disgraced Secret Service agent Mike Bannon (Butler), who becomes trapped inside the White House after a terrorist attack and works to rescue the president from kidnappers. The film grossed over $170.3 million at the worldwide box office and spawned a franchise with Butler reprising his role in 2016’s London Has Fallen and 2019’s Angel Has Fallen. Another sequel titled Night Has Fallen is in development at Lionsgate.
Deadline reported that the lawsuit filed by Greenberg Glusker on behalf of Comrie Inc., Butler and his G-Base Entertainment claims Butler has seen zero of that total from the film’s producers, defendants Nu Image, Millennium and Padre Nuestro Productions. Further, the complaint cites fraud, breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, intentional interference with contractual relations and accounting, and seeks a jury trial.
The lawsuit read, “Producers have earned tens of millions of dollars from ‘Olympus,’ but refuse to pay Butler a penny of the grosses and profits promised to him in the parties’ agreement. Butler refuses to tolerate Defendants’ misrepresentations and other wrongful conduct. Butler worked with Defendants to create a highly successful movie franchise. He demands his fair share.”
“Producers embarked on a scheme designed to grossly misrepresent the finances of the Film to Butler, so that Butler would believe that no such payments were due."
"It appears the Producers’ modus operandi is to hide the profits from Olympus in order to keep those profits for themselves,” added the lawsuit.
The news comes just a day after Scarlett Johansson made headlines for suing Disney over the streaming release of Black Widow.