Variety and Nikki Finke are reporting that Tommy Lee Jones has filed a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures and N.M. Classics for failure to pay what the actor claims is over $10 million in box office bonuses and the always ambiguous “other compensation” based on the success of “No Country for Old Men.”
Since the film has so far gone on to make over $160 million, Jones opted to throw down in court last week by filing a lawsuit. Interestingly he didn’t file in California, but in a San Antonio, TX court – which we suspect may have something to do with favorable state payment laws that we don’t know anything about and don’t care to learn.
The San Antonio Express-News reports further reports that Jones took a reduced up-front fee in exchange for box office returns, which is fairly common – but so is studios not making a timely (or accurate) payment on the back end profits. The plot thickens as the paper reports that Jones was supposed to get the same money treatment as producer Scott Rudin and directors/producers/writers Joel and Etan Cohen but then Paramount discovered multiple mistakes in his contract regarding the formula for his box office bonus and how much he’d be paid for home video sales. It all sounds very “math is hard” to us, but shouldn’t studio lawyers have this down since everyone and their dog participates in back end revenue sharing now?
Something tells me that Paramount don’t jerk Tom Cruise around like this. Scientology is a scary thing.