This lawsuit follows an ugly legal battle between the producers and Red Granite.
The producers of the original Dumb and Dumber say New Line Cinema breached their contract by assigning the rights to the 2014 sequel without offering them the opportunity first.
Steve Stabler and Brad Krevoy are suing New Line for breach of contract and asking the court to make the company keep up its end of their producer agreement.
Stabler and Krevoy say their 1994 contract gave them each a $200,000 producer fee, a share of New Line’s net profits and rights of first negotiations for sequels and remakes.
Instead, the company assigned the rights in the film to Katja Motion Picture Corporation and Avery Pix, which signed a deal with Red Granite to produce Dumb and Dumber To, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Under that 2013 agreement, Red Granite indemnified New Line, Katja and Avery from liability for any claim arising from Stabler and Krevoy’s producer agreement.
Red Granite sued Stabler and Krevoy in 2013 in an effort to keep them out of the production. The producers fired back with a racketeering lawsuit the following spring. The parties settled, and now the producers are seeking at least $1 million in damages from New Line.
Stabler and Krevoy are represented by Bryan Freedman, who is asking the court to order New Line to perform under the producer agreement and to issue a declaration that it can’t produce a Dumb and Dumber sequel, or transfer any rights for one, without according the plaintiffs their rights of first negotiation.
