A production company is suing a screenwriter who allegedly cut it out of a deal to produce and finance an upcoming film starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
Emmett Furla Oasis Films LLC filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court Friday against Brett Tabor. The breach-of-contract suit seeks a court order to prevent Tabor from allowing anyone else to produce and distribute “The Man Who Made It Snow,” in which Gyllenhaal is set to play drug smuggler Max Mermelstein.
The suit seeks at least $5 million.
A representative for Tabor could not be immediately reached. Tabor and writer Michael Kingston co-wrote the film’s screenplay.
According to the complaint, Oasis Films and Tabor agreed Sept. 30 that the plaintiffs would have the option to produce the movie if they make an offer to Gyllenhaal or his agent to star in the movie’s lead role. Oasis Films provided a proposal to the actor the same day, the suit states.
Two weeks later, Oasis Films sent Tabor a financing proposal that included having Antoine Fuqua as the film’s director, according to the complaint. Tabor assured the plaintiffs through emails and texts that he had “no intention of going behind plaintiff’s back to cut plaintiff out of the deal,” the suit states.
However, Tabor went ahead and struck a deal with IM Global to produce and finance the movie, the suit states. He also allegedly told Gyllenhaal’s agent and IM Global that Oasis Films had no rights to the film, according to the complaint.
IM Global, which is not being sued, recently announced it would be producing the film and that the services of Gyllehaal and Fuqua were in hand, according to the complaint. The actor and director also are signed in another upcoming film, “Southpaw.”
Mermelstein transformed Pablo Esocbar’s Colombian drug ring from a small organization into a billion-dollar enterprise that would eventually be known as the Medellin Cartel. He died in September 2008.
The film’s screenplay is based on the book by the same name that was written by Robert Lowell Moore Jr., Richard Smitten and Mermelstein.
— City News Service