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Executive Producers' "Most Favored Nations" Clauses Could Be Applied to Walking Dead Series Producer's Profit-Participation Settlement
Can the settlement of a lawsuit by one profit participant in a TV production be used to increase the contingent compensation provisions of other profit participants in the show? The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California recently ruled it could, in a lawsuit brought by writer Robert Kirkman and several other executive producers of the massively successful, zombie-apocalypse TV series The Walking Dead. Kirkman v. AMC Film Holdings LLC, 2.:22-cv-09101.
Robert Kirkman, creator and writer of The Walking Dead comic book, and his co-plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging breach of their profit-participation agreements by the AMC network. Previously, Walking Dead producer/director Frank Darabont and the Creative Artists Agency had filed a profit-participation lawsuit against AMC in New York state court. That action was settled in 2021, with AMC paying $200 million and promising Darabont a percentage of future Walking Dead streaming income.
The Kirkman case was removed to Los Angeles federal court. The plaintiffs' central argument is that the sweetened "most favored nations" (MFN) clause in the Darabont settlement agreement should be applied to their contracts with AMC.
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