It always seemed a fairly odd choice on Adrien Brody’s part to agree to star in Dario Argento’s Giallo, but perhaps he’s a fan of the famed Suspiria director and didn’t mind the fact that Argento hasn’t made anything decent for decades. However whatever love there once was, it’s now most certainly gone, as Brody has sued the makers of the movie to stop its US straight-to-DVD release.
THR says the issue is that he hasn’t been paid (or at least that’s his claim), and producers lied to him on the set, to stop him walking during filming. Brody apparently nearly left during shooting when he discovered his $640,000 fee, which was supposed to held in an escrow account, had never been deposited.
He claims the producers then told him that they were getting new funding, and that everything would be ok. They then got him to agree to sign a new deal, where he would continue to act and temporarily defer his $640,000 in exchange for having the “absolute right to withhold consent to the use of his likeness in the Picture” until he was paid in full.
Brody says the claimed new funding was a lie, that he never got paid, and that when he tried to exercise his rights to stop them using his likeness in the movie, producers ignored him and told him he would never get a dime. The actor now wants a permanent injuction against the film’s release, plus more than $3 million for breach of contract, fraud and misappropriation of his publicity rights.
Assumedly, the producers will have a slightly different version of events, and either way, the main reason Brody should want to withhold it, is because it’s allegedly terrible.