Kevin Costner Files $3.85M Suit Against Kylin Pictures For Alleged Shanghai Film Festival Fraud
Actor-producer Kevin Costner, along with production company Treehouse Films, is suing Kylin Pictures for breach of contract and fraud after they allegedly used Costner’s name to sell the film “Shanghai Sojourners” at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and then removed him from the project without paying him. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the suit filed was for $3.85 million in damages, a reinstatement of credit, and the agreed-upon profit share if the film is produced.
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Earlier this year, Treehouse and Beacon Films signed on to produce “Shanghai Sojourners” alongside Kylin, and Costner and Beacon co-founder Armyan Bernstein were set to receive a combined producing fee of $3 million. During this year’s Shanghai Film Festival, Kylin supposedly “highlighted the involvement of Costner and Treehouse,” which resulted in investors for the film. The suit claims that Kylin was already planning to fire Costner and Treehouse but waited until August to do so. Costner is also suing for goods and services rendered as the suit claims he rewrote the first 104 pages of the film’s script before being ordered to stop by Kylin.
According to Kylin’s website, the film follows a young Chinese woman falls in love with an exiled Jewish man in Japanese-controlled Shanghai during WWII. She helps plot his escape from China before the Nazis get a hold of them.
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This year, Costner starred in the film “Criminal,” about a death row inmate implanted with a dead CIA operative’s memories and skills who’s assigned to stop a diabolic plot, alongside Ryan Reynolds (“Deadpool”), Gal Gadot (“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”), and Tommy Lee Jones (“No Country for Old Men”).
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