Gerard Butler’s $10M ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ Earnings Lawsuit Settles

Gerard Butler has resolved a authorized combat over allegations that he’s owed at the least $10 million in income from the 2013 blockbuster Olympus Has Fallen.

Defendants Nu Picture and Millennium Media notified the court docket on Tuesday of a settlement, which is conditioned on the completion of sure phrases inside 45 days. Specifics of the settlement weren’t disclosed.

Butler and his manufacturing firm G-Base Leisure in 2021 sued in Los Angeles Superior Court docket, alleging some producers have earned tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} from the movie however have refused to pay him his share of income. He pointed to a “complete, premeditated scheme” designed to “grossly misrepresent the funds of the movie.”

Underneath his deal to star in and produce the film, Butler is owed field workplace bonuses, six % of home income, two % of overseas income and ten % of web income.

In keeping with the criticism, an audit revealed that Nu Picture and Millennium Media understated their receipts and income from Olympus Has Fallen by over $11 million. This included failing to report roughly $8 million in funds to their senior executives. Amongst different alleged misrepresentations had been understating home income by over $17.5 million and deducting residuals that had been by no means paid, which can have had implications for the crew’s healthcare eligibility, the lawsuit stated.

Butler argued distribution agreements had been fraudulently structured so distributors didn’t need to report all gross receipts.

“Producers instructed these distributors to deduct sure quantities from the grosses they might report back to Producers,” said the criticism. “Producers, in flip, didn’t embody these deducted quantities within the monetary info offered to Butler.”

The alleged scheme included getting into into agreements that had been designed to undermine producers’ capability to correctly account to and pay Butler. The lawsuit claimed, “Producers then reneged on their promise to have sure of these third occasion distributors account to and pay Butler instantly. This allowed Producers to regulate and manipulate how they might report the Movie’s proceeds to Butler.”

Butler additionally nodded to a authorized combat between the producers and the Administrators Guild of America. By allegedly failing to report income, they’ve threatened the healthcare eligibility of the film’s director and assistant administrators.

The criticism alleged fraud, breach of contract, and intentional interference with contractual relations, amongst different claims. The defendants argued that may solely advance a breach of contract declare within the absence of false representations that Butler relied on to again up a declare for fraud. A trial was scheduled for Jan. 2024.

Olympus Has Fallen, which spawned two sequels, has grossed at the least $170 million worldwide. Producers represented to Butler that the film has generated lower than $100,000 in home income and fewer than $320,000 in overseas income from 2019 to 2021.

Millennium Media and a lawyer for the corporate didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.