LOS ANGELES, June 10 (UPI) -- Mel Gibson has sued Regal Entertainment Group, the nation's No. 1 movie chain, in a profits dispute over "The Passion of the Christ."
The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Gibson's company, Icon Distribution, accuses Regal of cheating Icon out of more than $40 million in box office receipts from the blockbuster movie that earned more than $600 million worldwide.
Regal allegedly failed to honor an agreement to pay "studio terms" to Icon whereby the distributor gets 55 percent of gross ticket sales while the exhibitor gets the rest. Instead, Regal informed the company in May it would only fork over 34 percent, E! Online reported.
Regal, which declined comment, operates more than 6,000 movie screens in approximately 550 theaters around the world.
