Rich people problems.

In 2010, he won a $52 million verdict on behalf of actor Don Johnson in a breach of contract and copyright infringement case involving unpaid profits against Rysher Entertainment, Qualia Capital LLC and 2929 Entertainment, Inc.


The studio is farked. A lawyer who can convince a judge that Don Johnson deserves millions of dollars can convince anyone of anything.

"The 29 films, which include such hits as Mission Impossible 3, Charlotte's Web, Dreamgirls, Flags of Our Fathers, Blades of Glory, Jackass 2 and all three Transformers films, among others, have grossed close to $7 billion to date."

Paramount should be sued solely on the grounds of producing Dreamgirls, Jackass 2, and all three Transformers films. $7 billion on 29 films? $0 from me. Saw any of the ones I wanted to see on the free preview weekend on HBO and Skinemax over Thanksgiving.

I am a Hollywood studio, WarnerMount Pictures, I want to make a movie.

I get you as an investor to give me money, or get you as an actor to star in my movie. I then promise you a percentage of the profits (smart people ask for a percent of Gross revenue, never net profits).

We'll call the movie "Summer Blockbuster"

Now I take $100 million dollars and create a company called Summer Blockbuster inc. which I then loan that company $100 million dollars to so they can make the movie, but remember I still own that company....

Now Summer Block Buster Inc makes the movie, well I need to charge them rent for using my studios. I need to charge them interest on the $100 million dollar loan, I need to charge them money for distributing the movie, advertising the movie, sets, prints and on and on.

So the sad thing is they only had 100 million dollars but quite rapidly they are in the hole to me for whatever I feel like charging them, because I own them...

Now Summer Block Buster makes a BILLION dollars in sales over the summer. Well funny enough Summer Block Buster Inc owes me, WarnerMount a billion dollars in expenses and they only had $100 million of borrowed money from me to start with so sadly they go bankrupt..meaning any and all contracts with "Summer Block Buster Inc." are dealt with in order of who is owed the most money ( me first yay! before you shiats with the carpenter's union, songwriters, actors or whatever). So they have to pay me all the money they owe me before anyone else gets paid. I 'barely' got back my 100 million from the SBB Inc going under and the rest of the money owed to me had to come from the movie receipts to cover my losses so sadly that movie didn't make a single dime.

In fact, come to think of it, the special re-release of that movie from "Re-Release Summer Block Buster Inc." looks like it too will be in the hole even before it comes out. No one is going to make any money...poor MPAA.

Stop pirating guys you're stealing our hard stolen money.

Harry Potter leaked accounts.

Note that this film has taken $700m but still has yet to "break even"

Note also that the studio, as REOIV mentioned, has charged the account for HP for expenses such as prints ($30million), advertising ($130million), "freight" ($3.5million) etc etc. but also has separately charged the accounts $211 million "Distribution fee".

If they have already paid for prints, freight, advertising, PR etc etc then what the hell cost another $211 million?

Strange that all these movies all fail to make a profit but the studios just carry on making more of them....

REOIV: [a whole big ball of crazy]

This is why I hate my B. S. in Accounting. What you said made sense (to me).

Plus $57 million in interest.

I wonder what interest rate that works out to?

I really wonder why the IRS has not investigated these Hollywood accounts. If films made a profit they'd pay out profits to writers, actors, investors etc and the IRS would get their cut. By avoiding that they are cheating the IRS, and the taxpayers, of millions of dollars.
Why does the IRS not take action?

Flint Ironstag: Note also that the studio, as REOIV mentioned, has charged the account for HP for expenses such as prints ($30million), advertising ($130million), "freight" ($3.5million) etc etc. but also has separately charged the accounts $211 million "Distribution fee".

They subtracted Accounts Receivable. This makes no sense to me. AR is an asset on your balance sheet right up there with cash. You don't subtract it, you just factor in the small portion that will likely go unpaid. Seriously, WTF?

Flint Ironstag: I really wonder why the IRS has not investigated these Hollywood accounts. If films made a profit they'd pay out profits to writers, actors, investors etc and the IRS would get their cut. By avoiding that they are cheating the IRS, and the taxpayers, of millions of dollars.
Why does the IRS not take action?

Because they pay their taxes using normal accounting. "Hollywood accounting" is only to steal profit from people who are owed a percentage of the net profit.

The Melrose 2 investors have already received almost 90% of their investment back under the financing agreement

A -10% return over 5 years? That's almost as bad as my 401(k) investment funds!

Geotpf: Flint Ironstag: I really wonder why the IRS has not investigated these Hollywood accounts. If films made a profit they'd pay out profits to writers, actors, investors etc and the IRS would get their cut. By avoiding that they are cheating the IRS, and the taxpayers, of millions of dollars.
Why does the IRS not take action?

Because they pay their taxes using normal accounting. "Hollywood accounting" is only to steal profit from people who are owed a percentage of the net profit.

That's my point. The IRS would almost certainly have seen higher taxes on payments to investors, actors, writers etc than it does after the studio can offset that profit against other expenses inside the studio accounts. The IRS loses out.

It all kind of sounds like incest to me.

/window, please