If you hire a movie star and then you’re too stupid or incompetent, actually get one Movie to shoot with him, you still have to pay the fee. Hollywood invented the beautiful term “Play or Pay” for this golden rule – and usually the producers also know that they can hardly escape this obligation.
When the British production company White Lantern had to cancel their science fiction film “A Patriot” in 2019 due to lack of money, the makers of the film’s star, the French actress Eva Green (“Casino Royale”), were consequently asked to pay the fee in full sued for a million dollars. Normally a routine case, however, the producers had a number of text messages from Green, in which she strongly complained about mismanagement on set and used strong language to those responsible. That’s how the makers came up with the idea of a counterclaim to prove that Eva Green had deliberately thwarted the realization of the film and was therefore not entitled to her money.
However, the Whatsapp messages shed a new light on the otherwise rather enigmatic Eva Green
This rather transparent maneuver, which, however, generated a lot of publicity, has now failed before a judge in the London High Court – he dismissed the counterclaim and awarded Eva Green the full fee. “In particular, I note that Ms. Green has neither waived nor reprehensibly breached her obligations under the artist contract,” the judge said.
However, the Whatsapp messages presented in court shed new light on the otherwise mysterious and enigmatic Eva Green. It was learned that she doesn’t shy away from heavy verbal artillery in the fight for better shooting conditions – she described a producer as “diabolical”, a “insidious sociopath” and “pure puke”. But all this only to save the film, which was very close to her heart, as she protested in court. “In the 20 years that I’ve been making films, I’ve never broken a contract or missed a day of shooting,” she said on the witness stand.
