A trove of emails and financial records filed this week in the legal battle between fired "The Walking Dead" creator Frank Darabont, Creative Artists Agency and the AMC Network offers a glimpse behind the curtain of Hollywood TV production and financing.
But like the malevolent, flesh-ripping zombies that populate the show, it ain't pretty.
Both sides filed motions for summary judgment Thursday in New York Supreme Court, with AMC asking that the case be dismissed and Darabont and CAA seeking a ruling on how to gauge the fairness of the contracts he struck with AMC for the show in 2010 and 2011. Final arguments in the case, initiated when Darabont sued AMC in 2013, are scheduled for Aug. 24.
Among other things, the two sides have been negotiating for years over what should and shouldn't be made available for public viewing, with AMC aiming to keep its financial dealings under wraps and Darabont and CAA hoping to limit the detailing of Darabont's alleged boorish behavior.
Even with the worst details redacted, the documents released last week reveal a number of embarrassing and personal facts in the case.
"The Walking Dead," a graphically violent saga of a Middle America town battling hordes of the undead and other equally scary survivor groups is the most highly rated drama in cable TV history. Its gross receipts are estimated at more than $1 billion in the seven years it's been on.
Darabont, who directed the films "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile," created the show based on Robert Kirkland's comic book series and worked hard to find a home for it; it was turned down by several networks before AMC picked it up.
It debuted in October 2010 and was an immediate ratings hit. Its first episode drew an eye-popping 5 million viewers (it's now as high as 17 million) and the show had a banner first season. But AMC cut the budget for the second season by 25 percent unusual for a successful show to improve the profit margin.
Darabont set the second season in a single Georgia farmhouse to cut costs. But when AMC demanded to see the entire season's scripts, again not the industry norm, he ratcheted up the argument with vituperative emails, according to the filings. Soon after, he was fired. In December 2013, he and CAA filed a lawsuit seeking $280 million in damages, which was amended in August 2015.
More than three years later, a flood of depositions, summary judgments, expert witness testimony and monetary explainers have provided an unprecedented look at the financials of a vertically integrated TV show, in which the studio producing and the outfit distributing are under the same parent.
Some of Darabont's emails are ferocious, cruel, callous and obscene. In other words, must-reads for Hollywood types. But who has time to wade through thousands of pages of court filings? Here is a completely subjective assessment of winners and losers in the case so far, drawn from the record:
Frank Darabont: He's still the man with the vision to create, and the persistence to sell, the most popular cable TV drama ever. Sure he flew off the handle a time or two hundred, but that's just because of his passion. Plus, he has CAA's backing and the legal team of Dale Kinsella, and Jerry D. Bern stein and Nicholas Tambone of Blank Rome.
Eileen Bransten: The New York State Supreme Court justice overseeing the case, which could come to trial sometime next year, could have let loose with some Darabontian rants of her own, given the tales of greed she's been forced to absorb. But Bransten has maintained her judicial temperament.
Robert Getman: Darabont's transactional counsel negotiated rich award bonus deals for Golden Globe and Emmy nominations ($25,000) and wins ($50,000) that would be the envy of most Hollywood creatives.
Roger Avar: The partner at Loeb & Loeb was on the other side of the table for the bonus negotiations and knew that Darabont was never a favorite of the voters at the TV Academy or Golden Globes, though he garnered a Globes nom for directing "The Green Mile." Other than for makeup, "The Walking Dead" hasn't won at either.
Glen Mazzara: AMC has pointed to the fact that the show runner who took over when Darabont exited during the second season had earlier used the word "showkiller" to describe the state of affairs on the set. But later when queried by plaintiffs' attorneys, Mazarra said that "Frank was executing his responsibilities and duties as showrunner and there was a personal rift between [series creator and Executive Producer Robert] Kirkman and Darabont and between Darabont and the AMC executives."
Greg Nicotero: It may have been a cynical effort by AMC to show the court that it was fair after extended courtroom exchanges with the plaintiffs over profit participation. But whatever the reasons, the show's makeup and effects master had a 1 percent cut of the profits added to his contract.
Frank Darabont: The show creator's tirades were as venomous and obnoxious as anything ever spewed by Hollywood's most famously belligerent execs. While the volatile 58-year-old French-Hungarian, who was born in a refugee camp, delivered them while avoiding pitfalls such as discriminatory language, so much unprofessional rage doesn't help the dealmaking process.
AMC: The network had the prescience to bite on Darabont and the show when others didn't, masterfully managed the marketing of its global launch, kept the show on top for seven years and spun off two new shows while dealing with on-set turmoil and the ensuing litigation. So why isn't the network in the winners' column? Because, after a terrific first season, the network slashed the show's second season budget by a quarter. Its legal team of Aaron Marks, John Berlinski and Marc Kasowitz of Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman faces a challenge in untangling and explaining the network's internal accounting.
Josh Sapan: AMC's chief executive, whose annual salary rose 323 percent to $40.3 million in 2014, was perhaps too frank when he pulled back the curtain on TV networks' decision-making (and why a few shows stay on the air longer than they should) when in a 2012 conference call with stock analysts, he said, "The standard rule in TV is if the show is successful, you'll pay more. If you are the studio, then you're paying yourself in many cases. So it's why we have such a strong bias toward owning."
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Not only was he passed over in Thursday's Emmy nominations, his character Negan, the show's nastiest, most vile villain, comes off as a softy when stacked against the bad behavior displayed by this case's principal players.
Vertical integration: Loved by few but studio execs, the concept now ranks with "synergy" among Hollywood's most loathed. It's the practice of maximizing studio profits by creating content for distribution rather than buying it. Darabont claims he is entitled to 15 percent of the profits from "The Walking Dead" (AMC disputes that) and CAA says it was to have received 10 percent. But AMC documents suggest that between its launch in 2011 and September 2013, "The Walking Dead" earned $154 million in gross receipts and still wound up $24 million in red, which meant both profit participants got stiffed.
Mother lions: Among Darabont's noxious notes was one aimed at two writers which said, "I'd have not only fired [them], I'd have hunted down and fucking killed them with a brick, then gone and burned down their homes." He explained that it and other venomous emails were "sent during an intense and stressful two-year period of work during which I was fighting like a mother lion to protect the show from harm not only on my own behalf, but ironically also on behalf of AMC."
Handheld camera work: Early on, Darabont was furious over the handheld footage, which he saw as shaky and overused. "You MUST calm down the camera operating," he said in an email. "When I said please limit the handheld, it wasn't a random suggestion. And the operators MUST be told to HOLD THE FUCKING SHOT!"
Whose hands wouldn't shake after reading those emails?
Contact the reporter at tcunningham@alm. On Twitter: @toddcnnnghm.
