Warner Bros. & ‘Goodfellas’ Producer Resolve $18M Royalties Lawsuit
- Goodfellas producer Irwin Winkler and Warner Bros have settled an $18 million legal dispute over breach of contract and fraud allegations.
More than months after Goodfellas producer Irwin Winkler took a legal hit of sorts out on Warner Bros for breach of contract, fraud and more , the two sides have settled the $18 million "studio accounting on steroids" case.
"This lawsuit was based on a misunderstanding, which I am happy to say has been resolved," Winkler said in a statement today. "I have been making movies at Warner for more than 25 years and consider the folks there to be extremely trustworthy, professional and skilled. Most recently, I had a great experience making Creed with Warner and MGM,and look forward to a long and continued collaboration with them."
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While there are no details were given about what went down and who got what, if anything, the Bert Fields-repped Winkler and the studio are no longer going to the mattresses in L.A. Superior Court. It's all a far cry from the initial complaint filed on September 22, where Winkler's Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinge lawyers said that WB claims that the 1990 Martin Scorsese-directed pic "made no net profits and actually lost money."
"Warner's conduct in carry out this deceitful scheme to hide and pocket the lion's share of home video receipts (more than $140 million in the case of Goodfellas ) and to exclude that vast sum from the computation of plaintiff's contingent compensation, was, among other things, a willful violation of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing," said the filing from Winkler, who also produced Scorsese's Raging Bull and The Wolf Of Wall Street , the Rocky pics and Creed , The Right Stuff and many o thers.
Warner Bros had no comment on the matter when contacted by Deadline.
Winkler is currently producing the Scorsese-helmed Silence starring Liam Neeson and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ' Adam Driver, which Paramount is releasing.
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