Top film financer TSG Entertainment has sued Disney for alleged breach of contract, claiming that Disney‘s actions hindered it from investing more in ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ and deprived it of millions of dollars.
According to the Wall Street Journal, TSG Entertainment, which also helped finance the ‘Deadpool’ franchise for Twentieth Century Fox, is suing the studio and its parent company Disney pointing alleged breach of contract.
TSG said in the lawsuit that people at Disney “have tried to use nearly every trick in the Hollywood accounting book” to hold onto cash that TSG thinks it owed.
The suit alleged the Hollywood giant withheld profits and cut deals to boost its streaming platforms and stock price.
TSG has helped co-finance around 140 films produced by 20th Century Fox, which Disney acquired in 2019, including ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’.
In total, the company said it has invested around $3.3 billion in the studio’s content since 2012.
“At its root, it is a chilling example of how two Hollywood behemoths with a long and shameful history of Hollywood Accounting, Defendants Fox and Disney, have tried to use nearly every trick in the Hollywood Accounting playbook to deprive Plaintiff TSG — the financier who, in good faith, invested more than $3.3 billion with them — out of hundreds of millions of dollars,” the suit read.
Disney was yet to comment on the lawsuit.
TSG alleged when it attempted to exercise its right to sell its stake in other films it had funded back to Disney or a third party, it was denied.
“The consequence was that TSG’s share of defined gross receipts was dramatically reduced, further eroding TSG’s ability to generate liquidity for future productions, and frustrating TSG’s ability to realize the benefit of its agreement with Fox,” the suit alleged.
