Series stars David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel, along with executive producer Kathleen Reichs, filed a lawsuit on Monday against 21st Century Fox, Fox Entertainment Group, 20th Century Fox Film Corporation and Fox Broadcasting Company in pursuit of “tens of millions of dollars” they believe they’re owed.
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Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz have done some investigating – and they are not happy with Fox. All parties are claiming that those profits have been withheld.
Reichs was originally told that she would be entitled to five percent of the series’ profits, while stars Boreanaz and Deschanel, who have led Bones for over ten years, were entitled to three percent each. Reichs claims that she was promised 5 percent of the profits, while the actors say they were promised 3 percent. The news follows a similar suit filed against Fox on the 25th by series producer Barry Josephson.
Reichs, Deschanel and Boreanaz are seeking several unspecified damages, a full accounting, a court order enforcing their contractual rights and a trust set up to disperse the money. He adds that Fox executive Peter Rice and other executives “fraudulently threatened” him to take lover license fees of the show would be cancelled.
Their lawsuit claims that even as the series became more profitable for Fox, accounting statements issued by the studio “counter-intuitively shows plaintiffs falling farther and farther away from achieving profits”.
Remember when the phrase “accounting chicanery” was fabulously used last week in a Bones-related lawsuit against Fox? In its 11 season, it’s averaging a 1.2 adults 18-49 Nielsen rating.
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It revealed they “were being cheated out of more than $100 million in gross revenues and being overcharged in many additional millions of dollars in alleged expenses”. The audit also allegedly uncovered improper “packages” that “disproportionately allocate a greater share of the total fees” to less valuable shows, thus hurting Bones and its profit participants.
