Lawsuits and The Walking Dead have become as synonymous as the hit TV show and zombies. Over the past decade-plus, six writers, directors, and producers have sued AMC over money they are owed for the show, and, this week, a seventh joined the list. Dave Erickson, who helped create the show’s first spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead, is now suing the network, claiming he hasn’t seen any backend profit from his work on the show at all.
Which seems incredible, right? Erickson created Fear the Walking Dead alongside Robert Kirkman, and it instantly became a huge hit. He ran the show for three years, during which it got the best ratings of its entire run. And yet, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Erickson’s most recent statement on the show claims it has a $185 million deficit, so it lost money. But also, at least $49 million has been paid to other people, according to the complaint.
“Dave Erickson created a massive hit for AMC in Fear the Walking Dead, expanding The Walking Dead Universe and cementing AMC as the zombie network,” his lawyers, Aaron Liskin and Nick Soltman, lawyers for the showrunner, told the trade. They said that even though the show was an “extraordinary success, Mr. Erickson has not received a single dollar in profits from AMC and, absent this action, he never will.”
A lawyer representing AMC disputes the claim. “This lawsuit, like [Robert] Kirkman’s years ago, has no merit,” AMC’s attorney Orin Snyder told Variety. “We are confident it will fail, just like the last one. The contracts here were negotiated by the most experienced and sophisticated legal talent in Hollywood, and AMC has fully paid what is owed. This is simply another crass money grab.”
But those “money grabs” have worked in the past. Don’t forget that Frank Darabont followed a similar lawsuit back in 2013, which resulted in a $200 million settlement almost a decade later. A subsequent lawsuit filed by Kirkman and several others was first rejected but then refiled based on Darabont’s settlement. That’s still pending.
We’ll see how this all plays out, and for more details, feel free to visit those links above. But for now, let’s just marvel at the fact that arguably the most interesting thing about The Walking Dead these days is how much money people think they’re owed from it.
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