In 2017, Robert Kirkman, a comic book writer best known for creating the genre-redefining series The Walking Dead, filed a lawsuit against AMC. According to him, the television network which produced the adaptation of his stories had not been dividing profits evenly over the course of the previous decade.
Recently, AMC scored a big win in this legal battle. Daniel Buckley, a Superior Court Judge of Los Angeles, ruled against all seven issues that Kirkman raised in his lawsuit, saying AMC had been compensating him as well as other parties fairly the whole time. Specifically, the judge found that AMC was at liberty to define “modified adjusted gross receipts” in whatever way it pleased.
Kirkman’s lawyers are of the opinion that AMC has tinkered with the show’s actual profits in order to forego paying the comic book writer as well as some of the producers their fair share. One example cited by the legal team describes a situation in which AMC raked in over $22 million dollars in iTunes sales, yet reported only $4.6 million dollars to their partners.
Orin Snyder, the network’s lead attorney, issued a statement in which he called the judge’s ruling “a total victory for AMC!” He then went on to say that “AMC honored its contracts and paid Mr. Kirkman and the other plaintiffs what they were owned.” As icing on the cake, Snyder said that Kirkman and his colleagues could not possibly have been ripped off as they were represented by some of the most talented people in Hollywood.
Of course, Kirkman isn’t the only creative from The Walking Dead who’s taken issue with the network’s code of conduct. Not long ago, original series producer Frank Darabont sued AMC for firing him off the second season. While Darabont filed his suit in 2013, his trial is not expected to go to court until next year.
