No flights, no tights. And for most of Smallville's 10 seasons, from 2001 to 2011, that's precisely what viewers got: Tom Welling's Clark Kent, learning to be a man, laying the groundwork for the hero he would become.
At a status hearing on Monday, attorneys for Warner Bros. and Smallville co-creators/writers Miles Millar and Alfred Gough announced they had resolved a dispute.
Although the paperwork hasn’t been fully signed by all the parties, an agreement in principle has been reached to end the lawsuit that contended that Warners had robbed the show’s profit participants with sweetheart license-fee deals that the studio made with its sister TV networks.
The lawsuit was one of the big ones that tested vertical integration in the entertainment industry. Filed in 2010, the lawsuit contended they were deprived of significant profits when WBTV allegedly undersold the series to affiliates the WB Network and then The CW instead of licensing the series to outside companies.
Originally, the lawsuit also included Tollin/Robbins Productions, but that portion of the lawsuit was similarly settled this past January.
The latest deal comes on the verge of a trial that was to be held in June. The plaintiffs were seeking more than $100 million in damages. Terms of the settlement aren’t known.
The plaintiffs were represented by the firm of Kinsella Weitzman, the defendants by O’Melveny & Myers.
