[I]Bah humbug! Stingiest firm in Tinsel Town refuses to pay
THE iconic Bermudian filmmaker responsible for such Christmas television classics as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman is not a jolly happy soul this holiday season as he battles international media giant Warner Bros for millions of dollars of past-due payments.
Harrington Sound resident Arthur Rankin, one half of animation powerhouse Rankin/Bass, is fighting the entertainment giant for $2.6 million owed to his company over the past two decades.
The dispute arose when popular 1980s cartoon ThunderCats was re-released recently as a DVD box set by Warner Bros, which owns the distribution rights to that and 21 other Rankin/Bass titles.[/I]
They even go as far as saying in the article that WB acknowledges they messed up their accounting every year for 20 years and owe Arthur Rankin money, but that its “too late”.
Wow…what ever happened to being a stand up business? Especially with a guy who’s productions are making you millions. Fracking incredible.
Before everyone starts jumping off the handle, the following excerpt from the article seems way off the mark:
[I]
“But Warner Bros said they didn’t have any accounting on it except that they’d sold a million copies. My legal team started investigating and found out that for the last 20 years they’ve been deducting handling fees of $200,000 annually.”
Mr. Rankin explained that while Warner Bros readily admits an accounting error resulting in $2.6 million of improper deductions, they claim he caught the mistake too late.[/I]
That’s not the way Time Warner operates. TW prides itself on being a socially and financially responsible company. Besides, without TW taking the reigns, we might not have Thundercats on DVD or a TCats movie in the works - something to think about.
That’s not the way Time Warner operates. TW prides itself on being a socially and financially responsible company. Besides, without TW taking the reigns, we might not have Thundercats on DVD or a TCats movie in the works - something to think about.
You’ll be surprised by situations and such that have occured over the years which have resulted in large companies stiffing on payments to people - Time Warner included. It’s very petty and silly - but it does happen. So I’m not surprised.. the problem with situations like this is that they’re willing to sweep these situations under the carpet pretty quickly by just ignoring the reports, hoping they’ll go away (which they practically did - this was a Dec. 08 report).
Then think of why the boxsets came out - money. It’s not out of loyalty to the fans or anything - otherwise, that long-awaited Bernie Hoffer soundtrack would have long been released by now. Unfortunately, Warner Bros. wants money. Money = sales. And ThunderCats sells.. so whilst I’m grateful for what WB have done (they provided Batman: TAS which is just awesome), they’ve also lazily released boxsets and such of old shows. Which is why, in the UK, we were stiffed of the DVD-game. And why the ‘fans’ documentary was absolute rubbish - including a “superfan” (if one even existed).
Then look at the movie - we’ve received absolutely nothing of worth news-wise since the film was even announced apart from being CGI and people being named to pen the script and such. Nothing. It was announced last year - even Transformers got regular updates. It looks to have just stopped dead - so if that’s the kind of treatment ThunderCats gets, I’d say the report is pretty accurate because they just… dont care.
To be honest, Nick - I wouldn’t be surprised how TW works; I have an inside track. I think it’s the other way around. You’d be surprised at some company’s corporate responsibility when it comes to fair business practices.
I hate to be the one to say it, but that’s why companies exist - to earn money for their owners/shareholders. Otherwise, they’d be charities or NPOs. It’s the same reason that we work - we don’t work because we want to, we work to earn a paycheck.
This is nothing new concerning Warner Brothers. In fact, it’s nothing new concerning the “creative accounting” side of Hollywood; all the movie studios indulge in these kinds of legalistic shenanigans to pocket as much money as they can possibly get out of movies, TV, and the subsequent DVD releases. :mad:
Is Jules Bass still alive? If he is, I hope he knows about this fiasco and will side with Arthur Rankin if only to take on WB in court.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (WB) holds the right to distribute the works of Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. (R/B) released between 1974 and 1989 (with the exception of The Last Unicorn) for a share of the net profits of the distribution.
Before WB can remit payment to R/B for profit participation, WB must deduct its expenses, e.g. advertising, distribution costs, distribution fees, interest, prints, taxes, etc. from the gross revenue.
This makes it difficult to determine the net profit, and delays the payment of participation. In short, it is entirely possible for this to be an honest oversight.