David Boies' Film Venture Sues over <i>Jane</i> Financing

Since being founded in 2012, BSFG has had a hand in producing several mid-level wide release films such as Escape Plan, an action thriller supported by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Midnight Sun, a romance featuring Bella Thorne and Schwarzenegger's son Patrick. Last year, BSFG made headlines by agreeing to fund a new film based on long-running reality television series COPS.

Jane Got a Gun, an ill-conceived Western that starred Portman as Jane Hammond, a farmer's wife who enlists the help of her ex-lover to defend her home and save her life from a gang, was plagued with issues from the very beginning. There were numerous cast changes, as actors Bradley Cooper, Michael Fassbender and Jude Law all dropped out of the project, as did the film's first director, Lynne Ramsey.

But in 2013, BSFG and Boies — who loves Westerns — rode to the rescue.

According to BSFG's complaint, Impala and Nathanial, who had previously invested in Jane along with Stone Village Productions, began arranging for the financing of the film and approached BSFG about providing “gap” funding for the project in January 2013. BSFG agreed to provide $1.75 million, subject to certain conditions, but by mid-March that number had increased to $2 million, the complaint alleges.

On March 14, 2013, Nathanial met with David Boies in New York — as the famous litigator prepared to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court against California's ultimately overturned Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage — to ask for an additional $8 million to fund Jane. The BSFG lawsuit claims that once BSFG provided the funds, Nathanial and Impala would then provide the additional funding to get the movie made and distributed.

“Although there was nothing at the time to suggest that those promises and representations were false, it is now clear that Nathanial and Impala never intended to provide the financing that they promised,” BSFG alleges.

BSFG claims it would end up pouring more cash into Jane in addition to the $8 million it had already invested. The film finance firm further claims it made two more investments in the project — in installments of $9 million and $8.5 million — due to its reliance on Nathanial and Impala's repeated assertions that they had the necessary assets to produce Jane.

By the time the credits rolled on Jane, BSFG claims it had contributed a total of $20.625 million of the film's estimated $25 million budget. BSFG hired Gavin O'Conner to direct the movie and brought on The Weinstein Co. to co-release the film with Relativity Media LLC. But Jane grossed only $830,000 in its opening week and the film earned only about $1.5 million in its limited release.

BSFG seeks money and punitive damages from Impala and Nathanial. Calls to the defendants were unreturned by the time this article was written.

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Meghan Tribe writes for The American Lawyer, an ALM sibling of Entertainment Law & Finance.

The Boies/Schiller Film Group (BSFG), a film finance venture founded by renowned litigator David Boies and Zachary Schiller, a son of Boies Schiller Flexner co-founder and managing partner Jonathan Schiller, has filed suit against investor Peter Nathaniel and his Boca Raton, FL-based investment fund Impala Partners LLC. Boies/Schiller Film Group v. Impala Partners LLC, 502017CA002867.

The lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court accuses Nathaniel and Impala of misrepresentations that resulted in BSFG losing millions in its production of Jane Got a Gun, a 2016 film starring Natalie Portman that received middling reviews and underwhelmed at the box office.

Boies Schiller litigation partners Stephen Zack and Tyler Ulrich in Miami are representing BSFG in the suit, along with Gregory Coleman, a name partner at West Palm Beach's Critton Luttier & Coleman.

Since being founded in 2012, BSFG has had a hand in producing several mid-level wide release films such as Escape Plan, an action thriller supported by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Midnight Sun, a romance featuring Bella Thorne and Schwarzenegger's son Patrick. Last year, BSFG made headlines by agreeing to fund a new film based on long-running reality television series COPS.

Jane Got a Gun, an ill-conceived Western that starred Portman as Jane Hammond, a farmer's wife who enlists the help of her ex-lover to defend her home and save her life from a gang, was plagued with issues from the very beginning. There were numerous cast changes, as actors Bradley Cooper, Michael Fassbender and Jude Law all dropped out of the project, as did the film's first director, Lynne Ramsey.

But in 2013, BSFG and Boies — who loves Westerns — rode to the rescue.

According to BSFG's complaint, Impala and Nathanial, who had previously invested in Jane along with Stone Village Productions, began arranging for the financing of the film and approached BSFG about providing “gap” funding for the project in January 2013. BSFG agreed to provide $1.75 million, subject to certain conditions, but by mid-March that number had increased to $2 million, the complaint alleges.

On March 14, 2013, Nathanial met with David Boies in New York — as the famous litigator prepared to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court against California's ultimately overturned Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage — to ask for an additional $8 million to fund Jane. The BSFG lawsuit claims that once BSFG provided the funds, Nathanial and Impala would then provide the additional funding to get the movie made and distributed.

“Although there was nothing at the time to suggest that those promises and representations were false, it is now clear that Nathanial and Impala never intended to provide the financing that they promised,” BSFG alleges.

BSFG claims it would end up pouring more cash into Jane in addition to the $8 million it had already invested. The film finance firm further claims it made two more investments in the project — in installments of $9 million and $8.5 million — due to its reliance on Nathanial and Impala's repeated assertions that they had the necessary assets to produce Jane.

By the time the credits rolled on Jane, BSFG claims it had contributed a total of $20.625 million of the film's estimated $25 million budget. BSFG hired Gavin O'Conner to direct the movie and brought on The Weinstein Co. to co-release the film with Relativity Media LLC. But Jane grossed only $830,000 in its opening week and the film earned only about $1.5 million in its limited release.

BSFG seeks money and punitive damages from Impala and Nathanial. Calls to the defendants were unreturned by the time this article was written.

*****
Meghan Tribe writes for The American Lawyer, an ALM sibling of Entertainment Law & Finance.