The Paper's reporter Cheng Xiaojun
Bohemian Rhapsody, featuring Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury, was one of the hottest films of 2018 and won four little golds, including best actor, at the Following Year's Academy Awards. However, the film's screenwriter Anthony McCarten recently made a bizarre revelation that brought the film back into view from three years ago.
Anthony McCarten said bohemian Rhapsody grossed $900 million worldwide, but still had a $51 million book loss, which prevented him from getting the pay he deserved. To this end, he has submitted a complaint to the Los Angeles Superior Court, accusing producer Graham King and his GK Film Company of breaching the contract, asking the court to re-examine the film's accounts, and claiming that he should receive compensation.
Poster of Bohemian Rhapsody
Anthony McCarten, 50, has written "The Theory of Everything," "The Darkest Hour," and "The Succession of the Pope," and has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for "The Theory of Everything" and "The Succession of the Pope." The projects he is currently working on include a biopic by Barry Gibb, the soul of the Band Bee Gees, and a film featuring Yoko Ono, john Lennon.
Poster for The Theory of Everything
In the complaint, McCarten said that it was he who interviewed the surviving Queen members and completed the script in time, otherwise the film could not be filmed and would be in the quagmire of several years of development. Although the film grossed $900 million worldwide, the defendant never accounted for the net profit received for the film, so the 5% net profit payment agreed in the contract for McCarten was never implemented.
Bohemian Rhapsody was produced by 20th Century Fox Pictures, which had not yet been acquired by Disney at the time, led by Graham King's GK Pictures, and its production team also included Robert De Niro and Queen member Brian May.
According to box office website Box Office Mojo, "Bohemian Rhapsody" grossed $910 million worldwide and cost just $52 million to produce. Even if its publicity costs are the same as production costs, then the total is about 100 million US dollars. According to the average person's understanding of income and expenditure, how can it not cause a loss of 51 million US dollars in the end.
McCarten's complaint said that the defendant GK Film Company did not use the industry's usual standards in its accounting, but copied a set of standards from 20th Century Fox; he even suspected that GK Pictures' accounts did not have any standards to follow.
Graham King, 50, has produced films such as "New York Gangsters", "Escape from Tehran", "Zombie World Wars", "Hugo" and won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2007 for Martin Scorsese's "Infernal Walker". As of press time, he has not taken a position on McCarten's lawsuit.
Infernal Walker poster
In fact, it is not uncommon for Hollywood studios to use accounting methods to exaggerate expenditures on their books and reduce net profits in order to reduce the remuneration of staff payable. The earlier cases can be traced back to Lucasfilm's Star Wars Episode III: Return of the Jedi in 1983. The more famous case is 2007's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which ranked second in the global box office list with $942 million and cost $150 million to produce, but judging from the financial documentation of the producer Warner Bros., the blockbuster film lost $167 million.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix poster
The resulting lawsuits are also emerging. In 1988, the famous American humorist Art Buchwald took Paramount Pictures, the producer of the film "Coming to America", to court. In 2002, Stan Lee also won more than $800 million at the global box office for "Spider-Man", but he did not get the contracted profit share, taking Marvel to court. Such lawsuits often end in a negotiated settlement between the parties.
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang