‘The Walking Dead’ Creator Robert Kirkman Suing AMC For Unpaid Profits

In the midst of the ongoing war for ratings, the decline of advertising costs, and a huge armada of new shows on TV and streaming services, TV networks all over have been getting better at outsmarting each other in the game. However, not every strategy works well, especially for AMC, the home of the hit zombie apocalypse show “The Walking Dead.”

A new lawsuit alleges that the arrangement between series creator Robert Kirkman and the network have somehow enabled AMC to double cross Kirkman and his fellow producers Gale Anne Hurd, Glen Mazzara and David Alpert. They are now reportedly suing the network for profits that they should have amassed during “The Walking Dead’s” 8-year run on the network.

How TV Partnerships Work

Media giants work with their sister companies to further their complete control over the rights of the shows aired and allows them to gain profits from the streaming, merchandising and basically everything related to the show’s marketing. For example, FOX buys some shows from its sister studio 20th Century Fox Television Productions. Disney’s ABC buys from sister network ABC Studios and we have CBS who buys from CBS Television Studios. As for AMC, their shows come from AMC Studios, where “The Walking Dead,” “Fear The Walking Dead,” and “The Talking Dead” are produced.

Robert Kirkman Files A Complaint Against AMC For Missing ‘The Walking Dead’ Profits

In a complaint filed by Kirkman in Los Angeles Superior County, “The Walking Dead” creator and his three producers signed a contract where they would have gotten a cut of the profits from the series on AMC if it turns out to be a success. And in TV partnerships like this, the term ‘profit’ is usually measured coming from the production-company level. The complaint alleges that AMC kept the profits only under the network level so that participants in the deal wouldn’t reap their benefits.

“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 complaint says in its opening statement. “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.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, AMC assigned a value of $1.45 million per episode of “The Walking Dead” during its first four seasons; and now it has finally reached $2.4 million. Kirman’s claims are the breach of contract, tortious interference and unfair or fraudulent business acts under the California business code.

This report follows Kirkman’s partnership deal with Amazon Studios, who made the decision to jump to the network because they offer more creative freedom and secure payments for both the studio and Kirkman’s team.

In a report by the New York Times, 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 No. 1 show on television for five years in a row, so this is no surprise.”

It’s unclear how the lawsuit will affect “The Walking Dead” when it premieres its eighth season on AMC.