LOS ANGELES -- Film maker Blake Edwards filed a $180 million lawsuit against MGM-UA, charging studio officials conspired to insure his latest movie, 'The Curse of the Pink Panther,' would not be a commercial success.
Tuesday's Superior Court suit alleged that MGM-UA Chairman Frank Rothman and other studio officials decided to sabotage the studio's own distribution of the movie after Edwards supported David Begelman in an arbitration hearing in July centering on Begelman's ouster as MGM-UA chief executive.
The suit was filed on behalf of two of Edwards' production companies and cites MGM-UA for breach of contract for alleged failure to spend at least $3.5 million for promotion prior to the August release of the movie.
Edwards made the 'Pink Panther' series, which starred Peter Sellers until his death in 1981, through the two production companies. 'Curse of the Pink Panther,' the seventh film in the series, introduced Ted Wass in the lead.
The suit stated that MGM-UA agreed to finance and distribute the film and promote it on a level with the previous film in the series, 'Revenge of the Pink Panther.'
The complaint also said the studio's failure to advertise the film during the last two or three weeks of its run, and its subsequent release as a second feature on double bills at inferior theaters 'destroyed the new picture's chances of success.'
Immediately after Edwards gave testimony favorable to Begelman, the suit charged, Rothman and other executives set out to 'punish and injure Edwards by drastically cutting the sums to be spent in advertising the picture and refusing to provide adequate distribution.'
The suit asks $70 million in compensatory damages and $110 million in punitive damages.
The studio refused comment on the suit.
MGM-UA had hired Begelman in January 1980 despite a nationally publicized check-forgery scandal while he was movie chief of Columbia Pictures in the late 1970s. The studio later settled the arbitration dispute with him.
