New Regency sued Michael Mann in federal court Friday, arguing the 1995 "Heat" screenplay was a "work for hire" and that his copyright termination notices are "defective and invalid," according to Deadline.
"Work for hire" is the phrase a company uses when it wants a director to be a guy with a job. For thirty years the industry accepted the studio side of the ledger, and now New Regency has to argue in a 20-page complaint that the man who wrote, produced and directed "Heat" was basically a freelancer in 1988. The script was the job. The job made the movie. The movie belongs to the company that owned the job.
Mann's side says the real contract is an oral 1988 agreement with his own two loan-out companies, which assigned him the core rights as an independent writer. No paper. It is the oldest trick in the industry: the deal exists, the memory is intact, and the only copy is in the head of the man now suing the company that holds the ledger. His lawyers' line, "after 40 years, Michael Mann is exercising the right of authors to reclaim their work," is the nicest sentence in the whole fight and the least useful one.
The reason this is happening now is a calendar. Termination rights kick in around 2028, and the Regency complaint itself says "certain provisions" of the Amazon deals for "Heat 2," the DiCaprio-Bale prequel that starts shooting in January, "depend on the outcome of this litigation." The sequel is in preproduction, and the ownership of the original is a variable in someone's spreadsheet. The movie that started everything is now a line item.
Both sides are already using the lawsuit as a press conference. Regency: "we own the film, television, and other rights." Mann: "we will vigorously defend this action." Neither quote is about the law. Both are about who gets to say they made "Heat" when the sequel poster goes up.
YOUR TURN: If a 1988 handshake beats a 30-year studio ledger, what does that do to every "he wrote that" story in town?
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