- Celador Prevails Over Disney
A federal jury in California this week slammed Walt Disney Co. with a $269.2M verdict in favor of British TV production company Celador International over Disney’s once-popular TV game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Celador created the show and claimed in a 2004 suit that it didn’t get a fair share of the profits enjoyed by Disney. The Riverside jury bought the case laid out by Lawdragon 500 member Roman Silberfeld, who contended that Disney used accounting gimmicks to hide profits from the show.
The Associated Press story quoted Silberfeld, a partner at Robins Kaplan, as saying: “At a time when (Disney-owned) ABC was ranked last among the networks and desperately needed a hit, it entered into an agreement with Celador to put 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' on the air and share the profits of success — if there was success — with Celador 50-50.”
Silberfeld said he expected the appeals process to take a few years. Disney called the verdict “fundamentally wrong.” The LA Times blog notes that case has been seen as an example of "Hollywood accounting" techniques that have hit shows somehow never turning profits.
|
|
| 04:06 PM Jul 7, 2010 | Email the Daily Dragon | Email this Article | Post Comments |
|
|
