'The Walking Dead' producers hit AMC with lawsuit alleging breach of contract

Former The Walking Dead boss Frank Darabont is no longer the only one suing AMC over profits from the hit drama. Robert Kirkman, executive producer and creator of the comic book series the show is based on, has joined three other producers claiming breach of contract in a separate suit against the network, among others.

The lawsuit from Kirkman, Gale Ann Hurd, Glenn Mazzara, and David Alpert alleges the relationship between AMC Network and AMC Studios has resulted in a much lower licensing fee than the popular series should command, which has greatly affected the share of profits distributed to the four producers.

Filed in Los Angeles on Monday, the complaint, which can be read in full here, begins, “This case arises from a major entertainment conglomerate’s failure to honor its contractual obligations to the creative people — the ‘talent,’ in industry jargon — behind the wildly successful, and hugely profitable, long-running television series The Walking Dead.”

The document continues, “The defendant AMC Entities exploited their vertically-integrated corporate structure to combine both the production and the exhibition of TWD, which allowed AMC to keep the lion’s share of the series’ enormous profits for itself and not share it with the Plaintiffs, as required by their contracts. Plaintiffs and the other talent behind TWD are the ones whose work to create, develop, write and produce the series has brought its huge success, but the fruits of that success have not been shared as they should be.”

This new suit is similar to a still ongoing case originally brought against AMC in 2013 by Darabont, who developed the series and served as showrunner until he was removed midway through season 2.

In response to the filing from Kirkman and company, AMC issued the following statement: “These kinds of lawsuits are fairly common in entertainment and they all have one thing in common – they follow success. Virtually every studio that has had a successful show has been the target of litigation like this, and The Walking Dead has been the #1 show on television for five years in a row, so this is no surprise. We have enormous respect and appreciation for these plaintiffs, and we will continue to work with them as partners, even as we vigorously defend against this baseless and predictably opportunistic lawsuit.”

The Walking Dead returns for season 8 on Oct. 22.