‘Walking Dead’ Creator Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd & Other EPs Hit AMC With $200M Profits Suit; Channel Slams “Crass Money Grab”

deadline.com:

The Walking Dead series finale is coming this weekend, but the battles over the big buck from the one-time blockbuster zombie apocalypse show are far from over.

With the frayed remnants of a 2017 profits participation lawsuit filed by Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert, Charles Eglee and former TWD showrunner Glenn Mazzara still limping through the courts, the producers on November 14 hit AMC with a new breach of contract action for $200 million. “Even though AMC exploited Plaintiffs’ ideas and services to make billions from The Walking Dead franchise, AMC issued a MAGR definition that, in its original form, would not have paid out a single dollar in profit participation to Plaintiffs,” the filing in Los Angeles Superior Court focusing on modified adjusted gross receipts and other alleged sleight of hands by AMC. “Unsurprisingly, AMC’s MAGR definition has spurred a storm of disputes with the creative talent on The Walking Dead that ultimately resulted in litigation,” the 19-page document, plus exhibits adds (read it here). “Plaintiffs are entitled to the same treatment afforded to Darabont with respect to his MAGR interests, they are therefore entitled to have the same valuation applied to their MAGR interests, which, collectively, exceed Darabont’s and CAA’s,” the filing goes on to say of the 2021 settlement just before trial with original TWD showrunner Frank Darabont and CAA after almost a decade of bitter litigation. “As a result, Plaintiffs are entitled to a payment well over $200 million from AMC, in an amount to be proved at trial.” Looking at the end of TWD and the beginning of a plethora of spin-offs that essentially make the once home of Mad Men and Breaking Bad into the TWD Network, AMC’s top