A crime thriller that was sued, countersued, and delayed by 4 years unravels a web of streaming corruption

Crime thriller City of Lies may have only released in March of last year, but to give you an indication of just how long the movie had been sitting on the shelf, it initially premiered way back in December of 2018.

Not only that, but when shooting first began on director Brad Furman’s dramatization of what really happened during the investigation into the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, leading man Johnny Depp’s divorce from Amber Heard hadn’t even been finalized.

Even more incredibly, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales hadn’t yet made it into theaters, either, with Depp’s final foray into the swashbuckling franchise releasing in May 2017, which was eight months after the former Jack Sparrow had been confirmed to lead City of Lies as Russell Poole.

Along the way, it was pulled from the schedule and placed on the shelf due to a legal dispute between Depp and the project’s location manager, while the production was also sued by an Israeli bank who were claiming millions of dollars in unpaid guarantees after the feature was yanked from the calendar and essentially hidden away.

In the end, City of Lies landed with a thud by securing a 51 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, performed poorly during a limited theatrical release, and fared just okay on VOD. However, Depp’s unending popularity has kicked off an unlikely Netflix resurgence, with the forgettable flick currently trending upwards on its way to a potential spot on the platform’s global Top 20, per FlixPatrol.