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A "Frasier" Court Fight
Now there's a heaping helping of lawsuit to go with that tossed salad and scrambled eggs.
Two agencies representing the masterminds behind Frasier are suing Paramount Pictures, alleging the studio bilked them out of their fair share of royalties from the hit NBC series.
The lawsuit was brought by the Jim Preminger Agency, which represents cocreators Peter Casey and David Lee, and the Kaplan Stahler Gumer Braun Agency, whose client roster included David Angell, the Frasier producer who, along with his wife, was killed when their plane was crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
The complaint claims that Paramount, which produced and distributed the Emmy-winning comedy series during its 11-season run on the Peacock, failed to pay the agencies a previously agreed-upon commission that is usually calculated from a percentage of profits from licensing and other syndication deals.
"It's a contractual dispute about the commission that Paramount agreed to pay my clients and we do not think that Paramount lived up to its contractual obligation," says Sheldon Eisenberg, an attorney for the Jim Preminger Agency. "The agencies are disappointed that their efforts to resolve the matter informally with Paramount were not successful and they regret the lawsuit became necessary."
The agencies say the studio failed to provide an accurate accounting of the show's earnings and cited third-party figures that estimated Paramount's gross revenue for Frasier at $1.5 billion.
"Paramount has made other significant calculation errors...that have resulted in an underpayment of additional amounts which are also now due and payable," states the suit, a copy of which was obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Court papers also reveal that NBC alone paid the studio $830 million to license the Cheers spinoff, which starred Kelsey Grammer as jaunty-jawed psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane, living with his dad and hosting a radio program in Seattle. But the suit claims Paramount never coughed up a fair share of the money to either agency.
Paramount declined to comment on the suit, citing the pending litigation.
One of NBC's most enduring "Must See" staples, Frasier bowed out of primetime in May 2004 after 264 episodes and more Emmy wins (37) than any other prime-time show in TV history.
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