Eva Green has won her lawsuit over the failed movie “A Patriot.”
The case, which centered around Green’s $1 million fee for the film, was heard at London’s High Court earlier this year. In a statement, the actor hailed the judgment and said the experience had been “painful and damaging.”
Green had claimed that under her “pay or play” contract she was was still owed her fee, which was being held in escrow by her agent, even though the movie had fallen apart.
The production company White Lantern – together with film finance company Sherborne Media Finance, which took over White Lantern once the movie fell apart – disagreed. As well as defending the lawsuit, they counter-sued Green for “conspiracy, deceit and unlawful interference,” claiming she had deliberately sought to undermine the production and cause the film to collapse so she could buy out the script and make it herself.
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Mr Justice Michael Green, who presided over the case, found in Green’s favor and dismissed the counter-suit, saying in his judgment: “This was not part of some unlawful conspiracy or deceit,” pointing out the actor “desperately wanted to make the film.”
The movie, which was written and set to be directed by Dan Pringle, began to fall apart in 2019 after financing collapsed. Sherborne Media Finance stepped in to provide a “bridge” loan – most of which was used for Green’s fee – with the intention of getting the production back on track in order to secure proper funding. However as the film market shifted and funding became elusive, Sherborne found themselves on the hook to actually make the movie in order to try and rescue the loan money they had provided.
To do that, Green alleged, they reduced the film’s $10 million budget and tried to scrimp on production – including moving the film from shooting on location to in a studio and even suggested recycling props and sets from another television production – resulting in a “B shitty movie” that could potentially have ended Green’s career.
Of particular concern, she said, was the appointment of producer Jake Seal to manage the project. In private WhatsApp messages produced during the discovery process, Green called Seal “evil” and the “devil” and referred to employees at his production facility Black Hanger Studios as “shitty peasants.” The public disclosure of the messages, Green told the court, had been “humiliating.”
With production finance dwindling the production stalled entirely, effectively turning into a standoff between Green and White Lantern/Sherborne. If Green walked away she would be in breach of her contract and lose the $1 million pay-or-play fee; if White Lantern acknowledged the film was dead, Green was entitled to the money.
Green pointed out that even after the shoot was pushed back multiple times, no other actors had been cast nor key heads of department. “We say this whole production was a shambles from beginning to end because it was built on sand,” her lawyer, Edmund Cullen KC, told the court during the trial.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Green said: “She may have said some extremely unpleasant things about Mr Seal and his crew at Black Hangar, but this was borne from a genuine feeling of concern that any film made under Mr Seal’s control would be of very low quality and would not do justice to a script that she and the former directors were passionate about.”
“I do think allowances need to be made for the heightened emotions that were clearly present when some of the messages were written and for the fact that these were assumed to be personal correspondence between friends that would never have been imagined to be seen by anyone else and certainly not analysed to the extent they were,” he continued.
The judge did say, however, he found Green to be a “frustrating and unsatisfactory witness” and that some of her explanations seemed to lack credibility.
During her time on the witness stand, Green blamed her “Frenchness” for causing her to write the crude WhatsApp messages, which the judge did not find “credible or adequate.”
But he accepted that Green had been motivated by her devotion to the project. “The Defendants sought to portray Ms Green as acting unreasonably,” he wrote. “But it seems to me that she had committed to the film because she was passionate about it and wanted to make it as good as possible.”
In a joint statement from White Lantern and Sherbourne, the companies said: “We are naturally disappointed by today’s judgment and the court’s findings. We are carefully considering our options as to potential next steps, including appeal. The suggestion Eva Green has made today that this legal action was motivated by or represented gender-based bullying is completely unwarranted. It does not reflect the judgment in any way, nor the evidence that was heard at court.”
“Eva Green filed a lawsuit to be paid $1 million for a film which was not made and for which she did not provide any acting services. The evidence presented at court and about which Ms Green now complains were things that she herself wrote and said. Her comments, emails and WhatsApps were examined in order to establish whether she intended to quit the project, or would have proceeded with it. That was the key evidential issue before the court.”
“SMC has a long and proud record of financing and championing producers, directors, writers and acting talent of all genders, from Oscar winners to first-time female Directors. It is preposterous to suggest that Ms Green’s gender played any role in our decision to defend ourselves against this legal claim.”
