Frank Darabont suing AMC over The Walking Dead profits

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Fans of AMC's "The Walking Dead" were both shocked and angry when Frank Darabont, who developed the series with CAA and delivered it to AMC in 2010, was forced off the show prior to the second season. Now Darabont and CAA are striking back, suing AMC with the claim that the network has deprived them of "tens of millions of dollars" in profit through improper and abusive "self-dealing", according to Deadline.

In a complaint filed with the New York Supreme Court on Tuesday, the plaintiffs said that the company pays an artificially low licensing rate to the AMC affiliate that produced the show, keeping it running at a deficit while AMC benefits from the highly rated series. Typically, TV shows are produced by one company and distributed by another. AMC was planning to do just that with "The Walking Dead", offering Darabont 12.5 percent of the profits – but after Darabont turned in his first script for the show, the network decided to produce and air the show totally in-house.

According to the suit…

"Darabont is being deprived of tens of millions of dollars in profits, despite delivering to AMC the most popular show on all of television and the most popular show in the history of cable."

Darabont and CAA said they are entitled to more than 20% of the profit from "The Walking Dead."

Representatives for the plaintiffs also said Darabont had been wrongly fired from the series and is also entitled compensation and credit from the series' offshoot "Talking Dead" and an upcoming spinoff.  

AMC declined to comment, but "Sons of Anarchy" creator Kurt Sutter, who previously blasted AMC over the dismissal of Glen Mazzara, Frank Darabont‘s successor on "The Walking Dead", gave a colorful reaction to the suit and sharing his support of Darabont on Twitter, sending out this tweet:

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