Recently, Mao Xiaotong's 12.5 million pieces of remuneration was owed on the hot search.
According to the first-instance judgment of the contract dispute between Mao Xiaotong (Shanghai) Film and Television Studio and Wang Zhi and others on the Tianyancha APP, Beijing Yingbainian Culture Media Co., Ltd. needs to pay Mao Xiaotong (Shanghai) Film and Television Studio a service fee of 12.5 million yuan and a liquidated damages of 2.5 million yuan for overdue payment, and at the same time bear the legal fees of 104,800 yuan and the case acceptance fee of 112,429 yuan spent on the rights protection.
This time, Mao Xiaotong is seeking remuneration for the third and fourth issues of the TV series "Bad People Who Paint rivers and lakes (Season 2)".
Although the court ruled that Mao Xiaotong had won the case, the problem encountered during the enforcement was that the executors Wang Zhi and Beijing Yingbainian Culture Media Co., Ltd. had no property available for enforcement under their names, so the court ruled to terminate the enforcement procedure, so Mao Xiaotong's 12.5 million yuan remuneration was not recovered.
To put it more bluntly, even if Mao Xiaotong wins the lawsuit, the film remuneration should not be recovered.
In fact, it is not a new thing that stars and artists in the entertainment industry are owed wages and film remuneration.
Even A-list stars can't escape being owed wages.
Cecilia Cheung was once owed 2.6 million yuan in wages.
In 2006, when filming "Zhou Xuan", he was owed 2.6 million yuan in film remuneration, and even director Yan Hao could not receive the full remuneration.
At that time, in the "Zhou Xuan" crew, Cecilia Cheung's stunt actor Yan Mohan also sued the investor in court in order to recover his salary.
According to Yan Mohan, after the producer raised money, he first settled the remuneration of Cecilia Cheung and several other big names, and the rest of the people have been dragging.
So why did she still owe Cecilia Cheung 2.6 million, was Cecilia Cheung not popular enough at that time?
Gu Tianle was once owed 400,000 Hong Kong dollars.
Gu Tianle once filmed the film "Happy Birthday" invested by Zeng Zhiwei and directed by Ma Chucheng for 4 million Hong Kong dollars, which was good at the box office after its release.
But until the movie was released and the DVD was listed, Gu Tianle still did not receive the final payment of 400,000 Hong Kong dollars. Forced to do so, Gu Tianle's brokerage company sent a lawyer's letter to Zeng Zhiwei to ask for a salary.
She Shiman was owed 935,000 yuan in the final payment of the film remuneration.
In 2014, Charmaine She was paid 1.87 million yuan for filming the film version of "Moonlight on the Fifth Day of October". After the shooting, the production company only paid half of the film's remuneration and owed the balance of 935,000 yuan, and TVB had to appeal to recover the balance and interest.
Hao Lei lost nearly 2 million yuan because she was replaced.
In 2010, Hao Lei starred in the new version of "Never Look Away", but was removed during filming, and the heroine was eventually played by Zhao Ziqi.
Hao Lei later sued the crew of the new version of "Never Look Away", demanding 2.1 million yuan from the other party, and after the court trial, finally ordered the producer Jiangsu Tai to pay Hao Lei 300,000 yuan in labor fees.
Celebrities are treated in this way, and the staff of the film and television industry will face the dilemma of working and not getting paid.
In 2017, the staff behind "Three Women and One Drama" broke out, more than 20 days after the start of the play, the producer Zhejiang Small Player Film and Television Co., Ltd., Li Xiaowei, the legal person Ren Yan, the director Liang Zheng and the company's financial Wang Zhu collectively disappeared, resulting in the shutdown of the crew, leaving 380 crew members in Longxi, and owing the crew a total of about 9 million yuan in wages, equipment, materials and various expenses.
Before and after the start of "Three Women and One Drama", it has been promoted under the modern version of "The Biography of Zhen Huan".
According to their publicity, the artistic director is Zheng Xiaolong, the director of "The Biography of Zhen Huan", but according to insiders, Zheng Xiaolong was only the artistic director of zheng xiaolong at that time to help his friends realize their dreams of being a director, but all matters such as investment, financing, and shooting of the project had nothing to do with Zheng Xiaolong.
Xu Changjun, the director of this drama, has twice tweeted about this matter to express his guilt for his mentor Zheng Xiaolong, and helped clarify that Zheng Xiaolong has nothing to do with this unpaid wage incident.
Xu Changjun, the director of "Three Women and One Drama", returned to Beijing to plead guilty.
But the situation in the crew at that time was that the producer ran away, the director did not get the money, and the 380 staff members who were thrown in Longxi were left unattended.
At that time, although the collective salary collection was not small, it did not turn over any big waves, because in the entire salary collection incident, the lead actors Liu Kaiwei and Jiang Yiyan were collectively silent, and the salary collectors were basically those who were relatively weak and had no right to speak.
Not only are domestic artists often subject to salary arrears, but many artists abroad have also encountered similar situations.
South Korean entertainers Yoo Jae-seok and Kim Yong-wan's former agency, Stom, were seized in 2010 and failed to receive 690.7 million and 96.78 million won respectively.
The two terminated their contract in October of the same year and demanded payment of the arrears of the film remuneration, but the TV station, which was notified of the temporary seizure decision, entrusted the payment of the film remuneration to Storm to the court.
The two filed a lawsuit against this, but in the first and second instances, the court ruled that "there is no evidence that Liu Zaishi and Jin Yongwan directly signed a starring contract with the TV station", and Liu Zaishi and Jin Yongwan lost the lawsuit.
After Liu Zaishi and Jin Yongwan continued to appeal, the Grand Court finally stated: "With regard to the issue of the appearance fee of the current program entrusted by the three broadcasting companies to the plaintiff to claim rights, there is no appearance fee contract that can be directly relied upon."
Taking into account the characteristics of the performance contract, the influence and recognition of the plaintiff as an artist at the time of signing the performance contract, the degree of exclusivity with the performing arts planning company, and the fact that the performance contract was not drafted, the three TV stations believed that the plaintiff was the counterparty to the performance contract and directly signed the program performance contract. ”
At this point, the two finally recovered their own unpaid expenses after 9 years.
In 2019, South Korean female artist Jung Rou-mi did not receive a 70 million won remuneration for her 2016 appearance in the TV series "God of Noodles" due to the production company's arrears of film remuneration.
Later, Zheng Roumei's agency said that Zheng Roumei's arrears of film remuneration were not 70 million won but more than 80 million won, and in addition to Zheng Roumei, most of the other actors who starred in "God of Noodles" were also owed salaries. According to the statistics of the relevant departments in South Korea, in addition to "The God of Noodles", "The Princess Returns", "The Country is Calling", "The Fugitive", "City of the Sun" and many other TV series have defaulted on the remuneration of artists.
In 2017, Kim Woo-bin, a South Korean entertainer who was undergoing treatment for nasopharyngeal cancer, was revealed to have been maliciously owed 66 million won in endorsement fees by the "S Advertising Agency". Also owed by the "S Advertising Agency" is The South Korean actor Goo Soo, whose amount is as high as 125 million won.
In 2013, Lavigne hosted a small performance of more than 20 minutes in New York, and according to the contract, Lavigne will receive a reward of $500,000, which will be cashed out in three installments. But then Lavigne said she only received her first fee of $125,000 and sued the organizers for defaulting on pay.
In the entertainment industry, whether it is at home or abroad, whether it is a front-line artist or a low-level staff, there are people who have encountered the situation of being owed wages, so why is this situation happening?
Investor withdrawal is a very common reason for arrears of staff salaries, now the film and television circle has more hot money, investors are also more, and some investors just invest with the attitude of playing tickets, often temporarily withdrawing or no longer investing.
Tv series or movies have dismal ratings, and the failure to recover the cost is also a major reason for the arrears of staff salaries.
Of course, there are many cases of deliberate arrears, and this situation is not uncommon.
In short, whether it is a well-paid artist or an ordinary office worker, they all hope that the rules of each industry can be improved, and do not let the hard work be lost.