Yahoo News Why Cursed co-creator Frank Miller is being sued over Sin City
There have been rumblings of a Sin City TV show for quite some time.
Back in 2017, Deadline reported that the comic series, created by Frank Miller, was being given the live-action treatment for the small screen.
The Weinstein Company (which no longer exists) and Dimension Films were attached, Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead, The Shield, The Omen) had been named as showrunner, and Sleepy Hollow producer Len Wiseman was on board.
It would be a "far departure from the films", according to Deadline, and would introduce "original characters and timelines within the Sin City universe".
Then in 2019, it was reported that Miller had agreed a deal with Legendary TV, the studio behind Amazon's The Expanse and Carnival Row, Netflix's Lost in Space, Hulu's The Looming Tower, and Dune: The Sisterhood, a series set in the Dune universe, which will reportedly premiere on HBO Max this December.
Robert Rodriguez, who co-directed the first Sin City film with Miller, was involved, as was Stephen L'Heureux, a co-producer on the sequel film, A Dame to Kill For, and Silenn Thomas, an associate producer on the sequel and CEO of Frank Miller Ink.
Part of that deal also included an animated prequel series.
Then Skydance (Jack Ryan, Altered Carbon), another media company, was brought into the fold, but as of August 2020, it's all gone quiet.
There's been no word on which streaming platform it'll live on, who's in it, when we can expect it, or if it's happening at all.
But not only is there now the coronavirus to contend with, which is still causing chaos across the TV and movie industry, Sin City is also embroiled in a lawsuit.
Miller, who also co-created Netflix's Cursed, is being sued by L'Heureux. He claims that he has owned the developmental rights to Sin City and another of Miller's comics, Hard Boiled, since 2008.
According to the producer, Miller and Silenn Thomas have essentially put a stop to him adapting the former into a TV series and the latter into a movie.
He has also alleged that the duo have made "false, misleading and defamatory statements" about his ownership of the Sin City and Hard Boiled rights to numerous company executives, directors Zack Snyder and Louis Leterrier, a Hard Boiled artist, and others.
Deadline reported that L'Heureux is seeking a whopping $25million for "compensatory damages, including lost revenue, loss of future revenue, damage to reputation, loss of good will, and emotional distress".
Miller's attorney described the claims (via Deadline) as "baseless" and said that his team would be "aggressively defending this lawsuit".
This isn't the first time Miller's grip on the Sin City rights has wobbled.
After The Weinstein Company went bankrupt following the stories that broke about Harvey Weinstein's prolific sexual misconduct – he was later sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault – the rights to the film and TV adaptations of Sin City were set to be sold to Lantern Capital Partners along with the rest of the company's assets (via The Hollywood Reporter).
But Miller stepped in and the TV rights and those of the first Sin City film (not A Dame to Kill For) were not included in the sale.
How this latest legal hiccup will affect the franchise going forward remains to be seen.
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