Godfellas producer Irwin Winkler is charging Warner Bros. for tricking him out of his share of the profits from the 1990 classic film.
Irwin Winkler who's 84 has filed lawsuit in Los Angeles alleging he was cheated out of profits correlated to home video revenue subsequent to the studio's declaration of financial loss on Martin Scorsese's masterpiece. The expert producer says he is entitled to 50 percent of net profits and is looking for at least $18 million in damages for breach of contract or fraud.
'This was "studio accounting" on steroids. It was also fraud,' Winkler's protest alleges. Winkler goes on to claim that 'what Warner Bros. represented as the receipts of Goodfellas were really only a fraction of the actual receipts. Warner Bros. concealed more than $140 million of its actual receipts.'
'The allegations are baseless and we will vigorously defend,' according to the spokesperson of Warner Bros.
Winkler has a list of hit movies underneath his belt helping as producer on Sylvester Stallone's Rocky franchise, De Niro's Raging Bull, Leonardo DiCaprio's The Wolf Of Wall Street and Scorsese's yet-to-be released movie Silence starring Liam Neeson and Andrew Garfield.
The legal documents filed by Winkler's attorneys present an insight into how Warner Bros. computed its return on Goodfellas.
The grievance state that the studio charged $40 million of interest on its $30 million cost of production and that in 2009 it reported total domestic and foreign video receipts at $32 million when, in fact, they totaled $128 million.
Winkler's attorney Bert Fields said his client didn't uncover the true figures until 2014. The lawsuit also alleges that Warner Bros. 'deliberately' hid the factual profits from the film's home video release and did not report them.
Last year, the studio 'finally disclos[ed] to plaintiffs that only '30%' of its home video revenue was being reported a critical fact that Warner knew it could have and should have disclosed in every one of its prior reports, but elected instead to conceal,' the complaint said.
