Mel Gibson is seeking to chop down this lawsuit in half.
In court credentials submitted Tuesday, the actor/director’s attorneys appealed to cancel six of nine allegations leveled at Gibson by a piqued writer who claims he was deceived into taking a pay cut for his employment on The Passion of the Christ screenplay.
Benedict Fitzgerald, who cowrote the screenplay with Gibson, accused in his Feb. 11 protest that he was advised the movie’s financial plan was between $4 million and $7 million and that Gibson wouldn’t be getting his share of the profits until his crew and actors had been paid. The writer consequently agreed to a “relatively small salary,” two $75,000 bonuses and 5 percent of the theatrical revenues.
An appraisal showed the income input statements he received were off by more than $30 million, Fitzgerald claims.
Gibson particularly requests for the fraud allegation to be sacked, declaring that the scribe had to have acknowledged the actual budget of the motion picture, since projected at $30 million, thanks to the bulky sum of media hype the project attracted.
“Given the tremendous marketing campaign behind The Passion, the unprecedented publicity generated before, during and after its release, and plaintiff’s unbridled enthusiasm for the project, there is little doubt [he] was on notice as to the actual budget and production,” the new filing states.
Also thanks to all that exposure —both good and bad, The Passion of the Christ earned around $370 million locally.
“Moreover, it is objectively unreasonable for the plaintiff to contend that he had no reason to suspect either the size of the budget—or the fact that Mel Gibson profited from the film—seven months after he alleges that he received his first participation statement on June 28, 2004,” the Oscar winner’s lawyer contends.
Fitzgerald also procrastinated way too long to take legal action, the proposal suggests, and he hasn’t given any exceptional grounds for the impediment.
A court trial is planned for June 20. Gibson’s Icon Productions, which was also brains behind 2006 oeuvre Apocalypto, is also named as a defendant.
