Gerard Butler has filed a lawsuit against production companies Nu Image and Millennium Films, alleging he’s owed over £7.2million ($10million) in profits from the 2013 action film Olympus Has Fallen.
Deadline reports that the suit was filed Friday (July 30) in Los Angeles Superior Court, with allegations of fraud, breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and intentional interference with contractual relations and accounting pinned against the film’s producers.
The filing claims that Nu Image and Millennium Films “understated their own receipts and profits by over $11million, including by failing to report approximately $8million in payments to Producers’ own senior executives”. The figures are based on an independent audit conducted by Butler and his legal team.
According to the filing, which can be read in full via Deadline, the film’s producers have allegedly “earned tens of millions of dollars from Olympus, but refuse to pay Butler a penny of the profits promised to him in the parties’ agreement.
“Producers embarked on a scheme designed to grossly misrepresent the finances of the Film to Butler, so that Butler would believe that no such payments were due.”
Olympus Has Fallen was released in March of 2013, grossing $170million worldwide on a budget of $70million. It was followed by the sequel London Has Fallen in 2016 (which grossed $206million on a budget of $60million), and Angel Has Fallen in 2019 (which grossed $146million on a budget between $40million and $80million).
In all three films, Butler plays the lead role of Mike Banning, a Secret Service agent tasked to save high-ranking politicians from being assassinated. Three additional films in the Has Fallen franchise were announced in 2019, with Butler said to be returning.
Butler’s lawsuit comes the same week Scarlett Johansson sued Disney for a breach of contract after it made the decision to release Black Widow on Disney+ at the same time it landed in cinemas. Disney responded shortly thereafter, calling Johansson’s filing “sad and distressing”.
In a joint statement, Time’s Up, Women In Film and ReFrame criticised the Hollywood giant for its response, saying: “We stand firmly against Disney’s recent statement which attempts to characterise Johansson as insensitive or selfish for defending her contractual business rights.”
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