Director Nick Cassavetes sues New Line; says bumped from directing 'Peaceable Kingdom'

By Matthew Belloni

Writer-director-actor Nick Cassavetes is suing New Line Cinema, claiming he was promised a job helming the planned elephant conservationist biopic "Peaceable Kingdom" but was booted from the project after delivering a full rewrite of the script without being paid.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Cassavetes, who has directed "The Notebook" and this summer's "My Sister's Keeper" for New Line, alleges the studio agreed in March to pay him $275,000 (plus $25,000 for office space) to supervise script development and "several million dollars" more to direct the film (also known as "Elephant Orphanage") about Dame Daphne Sheldrick's efforts to prevent elephant extinction in Kenya. 

But Cassavetes claims that he and New Line topper Toby Emmerich agreed the Jeff Stockwell-penned script for the Mandalay Pictures project required a full "page one" rewrite, which he undertook for no additional charge because he was promised the directing gig. Then once he turned in a new script that Emmerich liked, the exec allegedly informed Cassavetes he was off the project."New Line made promises to (Cassavetes) that (Cassavetes) would direct the film in order to obtain (Cassavetes') services as a writer without having to enter into a separate writer's agreement and pay him his usual fee for a complete Page One re-write," the lawsuit reads.

Cassavetes says his usual writing fee is $750,000. He's suing for $1,050,000 (the $300,000 he says New Line promised plus the $750,000 he claims he should have been paid for the rewrite) plus millions in unspecified additional damages for his directing fee and for jobs he lost while working on "Kingdom."

The lawsuit, filed by LA attorneys Hugh Duff Robertson and Vivian Lum, claims breach of contract, promissory estoppel, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, fraudulent inducement and unjust enrichment. Neither Emmerich nor producers Peter Guber, Chuck Pacheco or Cathy Schulman are named as defendants in the lawsuit.  

We were tipped to this complaint late Tuesday night. We've reached out to New Line for comment and will hopefully have something from the studio on Wednesday morning.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for New Line says the studio is declining to comment on the litigation.