Guy Ritchie, the director of ‘The Gentlemen’ was sued for breach of contract over the movie by actor and writer, Mickey De Hara. De Hara filed the lawsuit after four years of the movie’s release.
Table of Contents
Guy Ritchie, the director of the movie ‘The Gentlemen’ is sued for breach of contract by Mickey De Hara after four years of the movie’s theatrical release. According to the lawsuit, De Hara wrote a script based on a gangster with a marijuana business requested by Ritchie and after completing the script Ritchie said that the project was shelved. Then in 2020, ‘The Gentlemen’ was released, a script similar to the one given by De Hara.
De Hara is asking for over $250,000, which also includes a cut of the movie’s earnings.
Lawsuit: De Hara v/s Ritchie
Actor and writer Mickey De Hara filed the complaint in the London High Court last month, alleging that Ritchie hired De Hara to write the sequel to the 2008 gangster film “RockNRolla” based on De Hara’s “personal life experiences.” (According to British newspaper accounts, De Hara reportedly risked jail time after being found guilty of carrying cocaine and cannabis “with an intent to supply”).
However, in 2018, after De Hara handed in the screenplay featuring a lead character who owns a marijuana business, the director informed him that “the time of the gangster movie was over,” implying that the film was cancelled.
The lawsuit claims that “The Gentlemen” plagiarises De Hara’s storyline, characters, and “unique aspects of the plot,” including the main character who owns a marijuana empire and an aristocrat with a drug-dependent child. “The Gentlemen,” in which McConaughey portrays a gangster named Mickey who is attempting to sell off his marijuana empire, was released by Ritchie two years later.
De Hara claims that following the movie’s Jan. 2020 premiere, he texted Ritchie to draw attention to the parallels between the two works. Ritchie allegedly responded that he and his people have attempted to reach De Hara for several years now. There was silence. De Hara disputes Ritchie’s claim that he tried to get in touch with him before the project was released.
Before the movie’s digital release in April 2020, De Hara claims he requested the director to give him a writing credit. Ritchie and one of his colleagues allegedly indicated it wouldn’t be possible and instead offered to give him writing credit on a different project that he wasn’t involved in.
De Hara claims in the complaint that he “has no intention of seeking credit for original work that was not created by him” and that he is instead asking for “credit for his original work that has been used in ‘The Gentlemen’ without his consent and without payment of the agreed remuneration.”
Additionally, that writer is asking for over $250,000, which also includes a cut of the movie’s earnings.
De Hara asserts that he originally worked with Ritchie on the 2000 film “Snatch” before the filmmaker requested him to write the 2008 film “RockNRolla,” which starred Gerard Butler, Thandiwe Newton, Idris Elba, and Tom Hardy. De Hara claims that he co-wrote the “RockNRolla” screenplay with Martin Askew at Ritchie’s request since Ritchie intended to make the movie into a trilogy.
The Gentlemen(2019)
Guy Ritchie wrote, produced, and directed the action comedy named ‘The Gentlemen in 2019. It centers on an American cannabis wholesaler in England who wants to sell his company and sparks a series of blackmail attempts and schemes to bring him down.
The cast members are Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, Hugh Grant, Colin Farrell, Henry Golding, Eddie Marsan and more.
It received generally favorable reviews from critics and was also financially successful, outpacing its $22 million budget by $115 million worldwide.
A spin-off television series was developed by Netflix which was greenlit on November 2022. Theo James will play the lead character. The cast members include Vinnie Jones, Kaya Scodelario, Giancarlo Esposito, Daniel Ings, Joely Richardson, and Peter Serafinowicz.
