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EXCLUSIVE: There is a malfunction in the Force.
On the same day it was announced that Star Wars projects from Kevin Feige and Patty Jenkins are now dormant, Lucasfilm has been hit with a breach of contract lawsuit over the upcoming The Acolyte.
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ballers executive producer Karyn McCarthy has sued the Kathleen Kennedy-run Disney division after she was removed from the Leslye Headland-created series last year after just a few weeks of work.
What makes this move all the more bitter, and more telling of the top talent streamer competition, is that McCarthy, who represents UTA, was at the same time being actively courted by Apple to help run their eventual PI series starring Colin Farrell in the leading role. Sugar, according to the March 7 filing (read it here) by Glaser Weil Fink Howard Avchen & Shapiro LLP. Deciding to bet her fate with a potential long-term commitment to Lucasfilm and The Acolyte In early April 2022, McCarthy was in orbit Death Star – and there seems to be no money for it in the sudden end.
Or, in short, “As a result of the bad faith and wrongful termination, Defendants deprived Ms. McCarthy of a substantial job that would have earned her millions of dollars over the run of the series.”
After setting up the business pursuit of Apple and Lucasfilm and how McCarthy was “the choice”. The Acolytethe jury-seeking complaint describes how she rushed to work on April 7, 2022, and how a “broad outline” agreement, full of UK hotel allowances and per diem allowances, was sent to her agent David Morris on April 11. , in that email to Morris from Lucasfilm VP Physical Productions Candice Campos, the exec makes a point of saying how “we really want to make this work!”
Then things seem to go wrong quickly.
“Two weeks later, with no explanation, no reason, no justification, Lucasfilm told McCarthy it wanted out of the deal,” reads the 12-page indictment in the Los Angeles Superior Court. “By then, Apple’s offer was gone — Apple had to move on and find another executive producer SugaR. McCarthy now had neither deal.”
Disappointing as that new situation was, it seems McCarthy took it in the spirit of show business and no show friends and headed for the exit, expecting to be compensated. That’s where things seemed to get messy, even by Tinseltown’s standards:
When McCarthy went to Lucasfilm and asked for payment, Lucasfilm denied they even had an agreement, even though (1) they had made their offer, which included all material deal points; (20 McCarthy accepted that offer; (3) Lucasfilm let McCarthy start right away; and (4) Lucasfilm sent a memorandum of understanding to McCarthy, reconsidering the terms, including that McCarthy had already begun work, in further disdain for McCarthy and the work she had already done, Lucasfilm offered to pay McCarthy $5,000 for a single day’s work.
McCarthy rejected Lucasfilm’s anemic and abusive offer, and while Lucasfilm acknowledged that McCarthy had in fact done work for it, Lucasfilm never paid McCarthy for that work. McCarthy is therefore compelled to bring this action to hold Lucasfilm accountable for its flagrant violation of their agreement, its bad faith denial of that agreement, and for the legal penalties McCarthy owes for not paying her for her work.
With that earlier statement that the EP is losing “millions of dollars” in the air, McCarthy’s lawyers Patty Glaser, Robert Allen and Matthew W. Bernstein are asking for a wide variety of unspecified damages.
Lucasfilm representatives did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. If and when they do, we’ll update.
As regards The Acolyte itself, there is no Disney+ debut date yet for the eight-episode series starring Amandla Stenberg. We do know that filming has been taking place on the other side of the pond since October 2022. Apparently with the tone of the Tony Gilroy created Andor, mystery thriller The Acolyte is set in the dark end of the High Republic, the era before the Star Wars movies start.
That aside, with Glaser on one side and Disney lawyers on the other, this legal deadlock over McCarthy’s money and deal could be the real lightsabers.
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