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NBC Fires Back at "Will" Creators
Where there's a Will, there's a way...to keep the lawyers busy.
NBC has fired off its own legal salvo in response to a lawsuit brought by the cocreators of Will & Grace who have claimed network brass tried to screw them out of their fair share of the profits from the Emmy-winning sitcom.
The countersuit, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, accuses executive producers Jason "Max" Mutchnick and David Kohan of undermining negotiations to renew Will & Grace by failing to involve themselves personally in talks two years ago. A $300 million license-fee deal was eventually struck in March 2002.
Mutchnick and Kohan, who also executive produce the on-hiatus Good Morning, Miami for NBC, sued the network in December. In their complaint, the duo allege the network conspired with corporate sibling NBC Studios, which produces Will & Grace, to undervalue the show by controlling both sides of the bargaining table.
The end result, they assert, was a sweetheart deal that ultimately benefited the network, but failed to reward Mutchnick and Kohan, who were profit participants. The two producers say NBC Studios never shopped the Must-See TV staple around to other outlets to obtain what they believe would've been a higher licensing fee. (As if $300 million wasn't high enough.)
In its counterclaim, the Peacock says it asked for Mutchnick and Kohan to take the lead role in negotiations to remove any appearance of a conflict of interest between NBC and NBC Studios, but that the pair never bothered to attend the sessions. Court documents allege the two also failed to put forward a fair license fee figure.
According to the complaint, "Mutchnick, Kohan and their handlers were only interested in creating an illusion of cooperation when in fact they were totally uncooperative, duplicitous and guilty of shameless self-dealing in the process."
Network lawyers say NBC carefully documented the sessions, numerous details of which were included in court documents.
NBC issued a statement Thursday saying it went ahead with the legal action "in order to protect our rights in the face of the wholly unjustified and meritless lawsuit filed in December by Jason Nidorf Mutchnick and David Kohan."
"The allegations against us in Mr. Kohan and Mr. Mutchnick's original complaint are not only untrue but are deeply unfair, because we have treated them extraordinarily well in the course of our relationship with them," NBC said. "Our counterclaim describes the relationship in detail and gives us the opportunity to explain to the court the true facts relating to the plaintiff's claims. We are extremely confident in our counterclaim and expect to prevail in the litigation."
Calls to Kohan and Mutchnick and their attorney were not returned.
Will & Grace, now in its fifth season, is the latest show in which major players have claimed they've been victimized by vertical integration.
Independent production company Wind Dancer sued distributor Disney and Disney-owned ABC, saying the network didn't pay fair market value for Home Improvement because the deal was done in-house.
Steven Bochco filed a similar lawsuit against 20th Century Fox for allegedly underselling reruns of his NYPD Blue to the company's F/X cable network. Similar suits were brought against the Fox-F/X machine by Alan Alda (over M*A*S*H's syndication deal) and David Duchovny (for reruns of The X-Files).
All four of those cases were eventually settled before going to trial.
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