Bohemian RhapsodyIn 2018, Freddie Mercury’s story and Queen’s love story was a big hit. The movie grossed more than $900 million in worldwide box office and was nominated five times for Oscars. It won four Oscars, including Best Actor for Rami Malek. However, the movie’s smashing success has not rubbed off on screenwriter Anthony McCartenHe has not received the back-end money he negotiated, which has led to a lawsuit.
Anthony McCarten claims he made a deal to meet with Bohemian RhapsodyGraham King is the producerGK Films, which would have allowed him to receive 5% of GK’s profit from the movie. But he hasn’t received any money from this deal. And according to him, he’s never received any reply when he has attempted to communicate on this issue, ultimately resulting in the lawsuit.
Problems with the term “semantic” may be partly due to this issue. “Hollywood accounting.” DeadlineAccording to reports, even though the film grossed $911 million worldwide, 20th Century Fox, which distributed it, reported that Bohemian RhapsodyDespite having lost $51million to date, Fox apparently bases any profits Anthony McCarten might get on its term “defined net profits,”This definition is not the same as GK Films’ standard definition. “net profits” is. GK claims that the definition of “is” was not defined in the lawsuit. “net profits”As there was no interest in creating one, it was not even considered.
Fox, Disney, and others have both been able to achieve this. Since then, the company has been acquiredAs well as the Bohemian Rhapsody movie, is not a party to the lawsuit as Anthony McCarten’s deal was specifically with GK Films. GK Films believes Disney should join the suit. They tell Deadline that Fox/Disney will work with them on any future responses.
This certainly isn’t the first case where the Definition of net profitsThis has been an issue. We’ve seen it happen more than once where movies that made hundreds of millions of dollars are shown on the balance sheet as having lost money. While certainly there is more to the cost of making movies than the production budget, and even that can be difficult to get a handle on, it can be hard to believe that a movie that made nearly $1 billion at the global box office wasn’t profitable.
If your agreement is for a portion of the profits, even though a movie has made money, Just how profitableA second crucial question is what the movie really was. This case could lead to some interesting insights into Hollywood accounting, if it goes to trial.