Eva Green is embroiled in a legal battle over the aborted sci-fi film ‘A Patriot’. Green would have starred and served as executive producer. She is suing the production company, White Lantern (Britannica) Ltd… and vice versa!
White Lantern is suing Green for £4 million (∼$5.22 million US) for derailing ‘A Patriot’, saying she owes at least $1 million in damages and should compensate them for the loss of revenue that the film would have brought in. She is suing White Lantern for £800,000 (∼$1.04 million US), saying that she had a “pay or play” contract meaning she would get paid whether the film got made or not. She is also asking for the company to pay her legal fees.
It appears that White Lantern was taken over by Sherbone Media Finance, and gave “notice of termination of the artist agreement,” stating that Green had breached her agreement, making her ineligible for the pay or play fee, but according to Green, Sherbone failed to explain just what this breach was.
White Lantern asserts that Green attempted to inflate the film’s budget by £250,000 ($326,000) to hire additional crew, even though Green offered to take this amount out of her own paycheck. (via Evening Standard) Green allegedly insisted on hiring line producer, Paul Sarony (‘Fleming’, ‘Vampire Academy’), saying:
“We absolutely need him on board otherwise the ship will sink.”
White Lantern insisted that Sarony was too expensive and redundant.
Green also attempted to add visual effects supervisor George Zwier (‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’) and her team of personal assistants, insisting:
“They cannot work for less and I cannot work without them.”
Production on ‘A Patriot’ was delayed twice, then scrapped entirely when Green allegedly walked away.
White Lantern’s lawyer, Max Mallin declared:
“Ms. Green engaged in a course of conduct that demonstrated that she had no intention and/or desire to complete the production of the film. [Her] demands were unreasonable. … [They] created significant distraction, delay, and additional costs to White Lantern’s management and their progress of soft and hard pre-production.”
‘A Patriot’ was to have been directed by Dan Pringle (‘K-Shop’). Helen Hunt and Charles Dance were cast to costar. It is known that Green would have portrayed “Kate Jones, a captain in the Border Corps of a futuristic authoritarian state.” (via Deadline)
Green is best known for starring as Morgan on the TV series ‘Camelot’ and Vanessa Ives on ‘Penny Dreadful’. Most recently, she starred on the BBC miniseries ‘The Luminaries’. Among her other credits are ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’, ‘Dumbo’, ‘Sin City: A Dame to Kill For’, ‘300: Rise of an Empire’, and ‘Dark Shadows’.
