Sueing BBM for ten million dollars?
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ashedmaniac — 20 years ago(March 24, 2006 05:25 PM)
I think it's naive to say that people believed Brokeback Mountain would not make that much money. Its whole marketing strategy was going to be based around the word of mouth and "controversy" things surrounding it. It was MARKETED to look like The Little Movie That Could while all along they were maneuvering it to make money. Did you even see when it was released? Prime time for "Oscar season". As if they weren't thinking "Well, at least it could get nominated and, 5b4in March or so, after it probably wins something, we could make some more money." Granted, it wasn't helped a lot by the Oscars, but that is the general idea behind many "similar" films released around the same time of year.
Randy Quaid, while assuredly not one of the best actors in the world, is entitled to monetary damages if he feels he has been misled while in negotiations for the film. Is 10 million what he would have asked for for his role in the film had it been clear what the budget was? No (It would have been considerably less than that). But does he feel that, now that he's been "cheated" out of what his typical salary for this type of film would be, he should be entitled to what he would usually get for this type of film? Yes. And clearly the 10 million is an inflated figure used to help establish how greatly Quaid feels he was decieved by those who led him to believe it was a low-budget movie.
So if what he's said is true, is he justified in suing them? Certainly. Does he deserve 10 million? Probably not. Will he get 10 million? Probably not. But if his accusations ARE true, then he will almost definitely be getting some amount of money. And, in my opinion, he DOES deserve a fair amount more money if what he's claimed is true.
-Ash
"YDuzItSeemPepleConsidaCaring2BTheAbility2Say"ICare"&Not2ExpresItThruActions,Insite,OrUndastandin?"2000; -
cjevans — 20 years ago(March 24, 2006 05:29 PM)
It was a low-budget movie. They didn't have much money to spend on a lot of things they wanted to do. the reason they didn't have the money is because it was viewed as too risky a proposition. why do you think the film took so long to get made. This is utterly contemptible after the fact rationalization to rob the film producers and should make Quaid's name poison to film makers.
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ashedmaniac — 20 years ago(March 24, 2006 05:36 PM)
Apparently there's some SAG (or something) guidelines as to what constitutes a "low-budget" film and this doesn't fall within those guidelines by at least a few million (Just working off of information I read here - it may not be correct information so if it isn't, this post is meaningless - but just consider that it might be correct info for this post here). So if anybody told him it was "low-budget" while he was negotiating, they "lied" to him and it would be fairly clear to a court that he's entitled to some sort of renegotiation and/or compensation.
-Ash
"YDuzItSeemPepleConsidaCaring2BTheAbility2Say"ICare"&Not2ExpresItThruActions,Insite,OrUndastandin?" -
Iwishyouwell — 20 years ago(March 30, 2006 07:49 AM)
Brokeback Mountain is not a low budget picture, its a mid budget picture. Low budget films are classified as productions with a total spending budget of 5 million or less, which BB mountain clearly doubled. If Quaid was misinformed of the real financial scope of the project, and that misinformation directly affected his salary decision, the company needs to reimburse him according to the true budget. Had they told the truth from day one, assuming they are even in the wrong, they could have avoided having to not only pay Quaid based off the original budgetary brackett, but also in light of the considerable profit they have garnished since the films' release. If he wins this will cost them far more than had they simply paid him according to the true scope of the project.
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swordoftheshogun — 20 years ago(March 24, 2006 05:40 PM)
You guys just don't get it. Randy isn't asking for more money because he is greedy, he is demanding the money because people LIED to him. They told him it was a LOW-BUDGET movie that was in the range of 1 million to 7 million. Randy Quaid's asking price for a movie, regardless of the length is 1-2 million dollars considering his long resume. How he gets off on asking this much is beyond me, but people actually do pay the man this much for a movie.
Randy Quaid is suing in PRINCIPLE because he lied to. It's not a question of how much Brokeback Mountain made, that has nothing to do with it. The producers told him the film wasn't going to be marketed, that it was a cheap movie and would never ge5b4t noticed. He lowered his price then because he was told all of that, and then realized they lied to him.
Randy is justified in his lawusit. He doesn't deserve ten million dollars, but if everything he has said is true (you people are far too quick to judge this man, shame on all of you) then he deserves the rest of his usual asking price at least.
That's all this is, he has nothing against the movie and the money it made. He wants to make a point that he was robbed of what he would normally make and wants to make them suffer a little for doing so. Don't you dare tell me you wouldn't do the same if someone said they would have to slash your salary by 50% and then later you find out the company is making record profits. That's the basic idea here, Randy deserves the rest of his money and that's all he originally wanted. Now he wants to take more money away from them as punishment, it's not different then some jackass who "injures" himself at work and sues for hundreds of millions, where are you guys when that happens? -
nicver — 20 years ago(March 25, 2006 11:48 AM)
He is a very talented actor but I am sure that being Dennis' brother must have helped him a bit.
In this case, he was lied too. The budget was twice the budget limit which the SAG gives to a movie to be labeled "low-budget".
A $30 million marketing budget was attached to it from the get-go.
Don't forget that this is an industry, not just an artform.
If in any type of project you lie to a partner and misrepresent your intentions, for instance telling an engineer that his work will be for a charity16d0 and it turns out to be a succesful commercial enterprise instance, then this engineer is going to sue you if he agreed to lower his salary.
Plain and simple.
And he is a very talented actor, better than his brother, just does not have the same good looks (I guess that years of boozing and good eatin' does get to you in the end). -
swordoftheshogun — 20 years ago(March 25, 2006 08:25 PM)
quang, it still doesn't matter. If he was lied to, he deserves the money he was owed, plain and simple. Do I agree with the lawsuit? No. But I agree he deserves the rest of his money IF (and that is the keyword here) he was lied to and was told the film was a certain budget but it was instead a bigger one with more room for profit.
I just don't understand the point of lying to the man, I mean it's not like it's a huge difference anyways. What was the point of hiring Quaid for this role and lying to the man? Couldn't they hire someone else for cheaper if they really wanted to avoid this sort of thing? Is Quaid really that high in demand these days doing b movies?
All we are asking is to not judge the man yet. Let's hear this out and if he is indeed in the wrong, i'll join you guys on the picket line if need be. Quaid isn't trying to beb68 selfish, he's trying to prove a point and everyone one of you would do the exact same if you felt you were owed money because someone lied to you. I would file a lawsuit for more actually, because it's very likely Quaid will be lucky to get a dime by the time this things ends. Look at the poor guy who helped in Chicago. The film earned hundreds of million in theatre and dvd sales and he is owed more then ten million and he'll be lucky to pick up half a mil tops. Where are you guys on this one? Why isn't anyone yelling at the Weinstein's? I'll tell you why, because half of you can't clear the crap from your eyes on this movie and assume Quaid is attacking the movie because he is greedy and ANY attack on this movie MUST mean you are either anti gay, pro cowboy or "just a hater". This is just a stereotype of course, I would none of you would think of any of those reasons being the reason behind this lawsuit. It's just a matter of words, that's all it is, and quite franky, it is none of our dam business.