Writer-director-actor Nick Cassavetes is suing New Line Cinema, claiming he was promised a job helming the planned elephant conservationist biopic “Peaceable Kingdom” but was booted from the project after delivering a full rewrite of the script without being paid.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Cassavetes, who has directed “The Notebook” and this summer’s “My Sister’s Keeper” for New Line, alleges the studio agreed in March to pay him $275,000 (plus $25,000 for office space) to supervise script development and “several million dollars” more to direct the film (also known as “Elephant Orphanage”) about Dame Daphne Sheldrick’s efforts to prevent elephant extinction in Kenya.
But Cassavetes claims that he and New Line topper To
Cassavetes says his usual writing fee is $750,000. He’s suing for $1,050,000 (the $300,000 he says New Line promised plus the $750,000 he claims he should have been paid for the rewrite) plus millions in unspecified additional damages for his directing fee and for jobs he lost while working on “Kingdom.”
The lawsuit, filed
We were tipped to this complaint late Tuesday night. We’ve reached out to New Line for comment and will hopefully have something from the studio on Wednesday morning.
UPDATE: A spokesperson for New Line says the studio is declining to comment on the litigation.
