French actor Eva Green wins $1M in spat over ‘B movie’
Posted April 28, 2023 by: Admin
Eva Green, the French actor known for her role in the 2006 version of the James Bond thriller “Casino Royale,” has been awarded $1 million by a British court in a dispute over the collapse of a sci-fi film project called “A Patriot.”
The case played out in court like a melodrama, with the producers portraying Green as a diva who made excessive creative and financial demands, while Green accused the producers of employing bully-boy tactics and using her as a scapegoat for their own failures.
During the trial, the court was told that Green used an expletive when describing potential crew members as “peasants.” She had called one of the executive producers a “devious sociopath” and “pure vomit” and said the production manager was a “moron.” Despite this, Justice Michael Green deemed the case “relatively straightforward” and awarded Green the fee she had been promised for the production.
Green stated that her professional reputation had been upheld after she stood up to a small group of rich men. She also expressed her fragility in the face of criticism and the hurt she felt from what she claimed was misreporting in the press. She said, “There are few things the media enjoys more than tearing a woman to pieces…It was cruel and it was untrue.”
The judge dismissed a countersuit brought by the production company White Lantern Film, which claimed that Green had renounced or breached her obligations and made excessive creative and financial demands. The judge found that Green had not breached her obligations and was entitled to her fee.
Green testified that she had “fallen in love” with the script for “A Patriot” and its environmental message but had become increasingly concerned as corners were cut and production moved from Ireland to England. She had feared that if the film ended up being a B movie, it could ruin her career.
While Justice Green found in favor of Eva Green, he gave poor reviews to both sides in his 71-page ruling. He called the actor “in some senses a frustrating and unsatisfactory witness” and said that the unpleasant things she had said about one of the executive producers were out of a genuine concern that the film would not do the script justice.
