‘Walking Dead’ Creator and Producers Sue AMC

The creator and producers of mega-hit “The Walking Dead” have filed a potentially billion-dollar lawsuit against AMC, alleging that the series’ network has kept “the lion’s share” of profits for itself and not properly distributed them to its “creative people.” The news emerged one day after creator Robert Kirkman signed an overall deal with US streamer Amazon and a first-look agreement with his production company Skybound Entertainment.

The suit filed in Los Angeles involves recently extended spin-off show “Fear The Walking Dead” and after-show “The Talking Dead.” The involved parties include Kirkman and producers Gale Anne Hurd, Glen Mazzara and David Alpert.
“This case arises from a major entertainment conglomerate’s failure to honor its contractual obligations to the creative people — the ‘talent,’ in industry jargon — behind the wildly successful, and hugely profitable, long-running television series The Walking Dead,” the lawsuit reads.

“The defendant AMC Entities exploited their vertically integrated corporate structure to combine both the production and the exhibition of TWD, which allowed AMC to keep the lion’s share of the series’ enormous profits for itself and not share it with the Plaintiffs, as required by their contracts.”

The suit details that Kirkman is due 5 percent of profits from the show, with Hurd due 7.5 percent, Alpert 2.5 percent and former showrunner Mazzara 1.5 percent,

AMC is also currently embroiled in another lawsuit filed by The Walking Dead’s first showrunner Frank Darabont, which similarly questions how much the network is imputing from each episode.