entertainment

Defendant was hired to perform post-production work on two feature films. Plaintiff sued for breach of contract and conversion, alleging defendant failed to perform as agreed and withheld possession of the films and electronic files to extort money from plaintiff. Defendant cross-complained claiming all work was done plus extras and that plaintiff failed to deliver a promised assignment of an equity interest in an entity which owned the films.

Plaintiff, a film financing company, made a large bridge loan to fund pre-production of a movie. Guarantors, film production companies, agreed if the loan was not timely repaid, they would contribute a specified portion of all producer fees received on any project until the debt was repaid. Plaintiff alleged the production companies breached this agreement and also sued the individual principles for inducing breach of contract by allegedly causing the companies to divert the producer fees to themselves.

Plaintiff, a songwriter, sued a music publisher for breaching a music co-publishing agreement which required defendant to pay specific percentages of royalties depending on the nature of the income derived from the song.

Studio sued a streamer for inducing breach of contract for knowingly soliciting and hiring key executives under contract. Streamer unsuccessfully argued that the contracts were unconscionable and violated the “seven-year rule” of Labor Code section 2855 because employees had signed successive employment contracts whose terms in the aggregate exceeded seven years. Studio obtained a permanent injunction on summary judgment.