Dave Ericksonco-author “Fear the Walking Dead“, sued AMC Networks on Wednesday, claiming he was denied his rightful share of the show's profits.
He becomes the seventh “Walking Dead” producer in the last ten years to accuse the cable network of using Hollywood accounting tricks to avoid paying out profits to participants.
Erickson created a spin-off show in 2015 with Robert Kirkman, the comic's creator. He also served as showrunner for three years.
Erickson took the job knowing that for a successful showrunner, “one episode could generate a lifetime annuity,” the suit says. But Erickson received no profit, the suit alleges, while others received as much as $67 million. According to the complaint, the network claims the show has a $185 million deficit, meaning it will almost certainly never see a penny in profit.
Like other lawsuits filed against The Walking Dead, the lawsuit alleges that AMC abused its role as both producer and exhibitor of the show by making false accusations against the show's bottom line and avoiding paying out profits.
“When a vertically integrated conglomerate such as AMC simultaneously produces a series and licenses it to its various subsidiaries, domestic and international, cable and streaming, numerous concerns about undue self-dealing arise,” the lawsuit states. “Erickson is taking this action to correct AMC’s egregious misconduct and recover the tens of millions of dollars in profits that are rightfully due to it.”
Frank Darabont, the creator of The Walking Dead, and his agency CAA filed a similar lawsuit in 2013, which was ultimately settled for $200 million eight years later. Kirkman and four other producers filed the lawsuit in 2017. That complaint was dismissed by a Los Angeles state judge, but the producers refiled it in federal court, where the case is still pending.
AMC denied Erickson's allegations in a statement.
“This lawsuit, like Kirkman's one several years ago, has no merit,” said Orin Snyder, the company's attorney. “We are confident that it will fail, just like the last one. The contracts here were negotiated by the most experienced and sophisticated lawyers in Hollywood, and AMC paid the full amount due. This is just another gross money grab.”
Erickson states that he worked for AMC under an overall agreement that gave him 5% of “modified adjusted gross revenue” from Fear the Walking Dead. The lawsuit alleges that AMC did not actually provide Erickson representatives with a definition of MAGR until several years later, but they were assured that it would be the same definition that applied to everyone else.
It was only later, when they were told the show was losing nearly $200 million, that they realized it was “the worst possible description of a hit show in television history,” the suit says.
