The Walking Dead: Frank Darabont is Suing AMC, Again

Former The Walking Dead showrunner Frank Darabont continues his feud with AMC by filing yet another lawsuit that alleges he is owed additional tens of millions of dollars for his work on the series.

This extends the saga between both parties, which has been going on for more than four years, with Darabont and his agency, CAA, previously suing due to claims that the network cheated him out of millions of dollars from the show’s profits: $280 million to be exact. In the new lawsuit, filed today in the New York Supreme Court, Darabont’s team alleges that new information has come to light, indicating that he’s now entitled to tens of millions in additional compensation.

This is due to his lawyers only now becoming aware that another producer on the show — the comic’s co-creator Robert Kirkman — actually had a profit calculation based on AMC’s “actual” distribution fee, rather than an “imputed” fee which was used in Darabont’s initial case. This was revealed last fall when Kirkman and other profit participants filed their own lawsuits against AMC, and attached Kirkman’s contract which Darabont’s lawyers are now pulling their new information from.

Previously, Darabont’s attorneys alleged that AMC had withheld the relevant provision of Kirkman’s document. Because they allege that Kirkman received a more generous agreement, Darabont is now of the belief that his contract should be assessed in the same manner, which is what has led to this new lawsuit.

AMC’s attorney, Orin Snyder of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, issued the following statement in response:

“At the heart of this lawsuit — and all the litigation related to ‘The Walking Dead’ — is the greed of CAA. Their goal is every dollar for themselves, with total disregard for contracts, clients, fairness or even basic decency. AMC was the only network willing to take a risk on The Walking Dead, after many others passed. AMC has been an honest steward of the series and has paid all of its creative partners handsomely and appropriately. This is just another opportunistic lawsuit orchestrated by the most powerful lawyers and Hollywood agents seeking an unjustified windfall and we are confident that it will be defeated in court.”

In other words, while the show continues in its eighth season, this feud doesn’t look like it’ll be dead anytime soon.