Normally in Hollywood, if you have a grievance against a studio, you don’t sue because of the effect it might have for the furture of your career, but such concerns haven’t stopped The Notebook and My Sister’s Keeper director Nick Cassavetes, who’s taking New Line to court over his firing from elephant orphanage drama Peacable Kingdom.
He’s alleging fraud and breach of contract, saying he was never paid for a rewrite of the script and he’s also seeking damages for other work that he passed on while working on the movie. The problem stems from the fact that when he signed on, he agreed to do a complete rewrite for no extra money, because he was promised the directing gig, with THR quoting the lawsuit as saying, “New Line made promises to (Cassavetes) that he would direct the film in order to obtain his services as a writer without having to enter into a separate writer’s agreement and pay him his usual fee for a complete page one rewrite.”
Cassavetes joined the film in March, which is a biopic about Daphne Sheldrick, who’s devoted her life to trying to save the elephant by helping baby elephants that have been orphanced by war, poaching and culling. However he was recently fired and he hasn’t taken the news well.
Endless hiring and firing happens all the time in Hollywood, but few people go court over it, whether they’ve got a good case or not. When contacted by Variety, New Line’s parent company, Warner Bros, had no comment on the suit. Cassavetes is seeking millions