The lawsuit claims that the company intentionally positioned the terms of the showrunner's profit participation so that he never breaks even.
The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in California state court, challenges the structure through which Erickson’s profits for the series is calculated, alleging he’s not on equal footing as other participants.
His latest statement shows a $185 million deficit, essentially making it impossible for him to break even, according to the complaint.that’s put a spotlight on AMC’s accounting practices, dealings with talent and conflicts of interest that arise with vertical integration when the producer of a TV show also distributes it via an affiliated entity that pays a license fee. Erickson seeks a court order modifying his backend payment formula, plus unspecified damages.. Despite the show’s “extraordinary success, Mr. Erickson has not received a single dollar in profits from AMC and, absent this action, he never will.”made cable history in 2015 when it premiered to 10.1 million viewers. It remained a ratings juggernaut across its first season run, with some episodes topping. The three seasons in which Erickson was the showrunner were by far the most watched in the series. It likely cleared hundreds of millions dollars in gross receipts. But the lawsuit says that Erickson hasn’t seen any money from his profit participation in the show. While AMC represented to him that the series is running a nine-figure deficit as of 2025, more than a decade after its premiere, his statement showed that at least $49 million has been paid to other unnamed participants, the complaint claims.In 2021, AMC reached a $200 million settlement with Frank Darabont, but it raised a question that’s become a legal headache for the network since: Did the deal trigger so-called most favored nations clauses, which ensures equal treatment if another party negotiates better terms, held by creator Robert Kirkman and other executive producers? Like that ongoing case, Erickson argues that AMC is breaching his contract by declining to improve his definition for something called “modified adjusted gross receipts” , a form of revenue minus certain costs. When his representatives asked AMC Studios head of business affairs Scott Stein about the issue, the executive stated that Erickson would get the “best possible definition,” including any alterations granted to other talent, the lawsuit says. “We still need to negotiate improvements to the backend definition,” Erickson’s reps wrote in a 2016 email to Stein, according to the complaint. “You were going to let us know the differences between Dave’s current definition and the best definitions you’ve given others.” Stein replied, “I will review and propose those modifications when I start drafting this up if we are getting to a resolution.” The exec conceded in this exchange that Erickson would benefit from any modifications given to profit participants, the lawsuit argues. The litigation has been brewing for years. A 2021 statement showed that roughly $14 million had already been paid out to other backend participants, meaning that their statements would have to show profits of over $80 million, according to the complaint. “Simply put, Erickson was being accounted to as if he had the worst possible definition for a hit show in the history of television,” Liskin writes. As of 2025, at least $49 million in profits have been paid out. It’s believed executive producers Gale Anne Hurd and David Alpert, plus Kirkman, all received improvements that increased their backend payouts over the course of the show’s eight season run. Erickson is seeking a court order that would put him on equal footing. By the showrunner’s thinking, AMC purposely withheld specifying the exact terms of his profit participation, with the intent of crafting it so that he’d never break even. This tracks with allegations from Darabont and Kirkman, both of whom said that AMC waited to see how the show would perform to spell out the terms under its unilateral right to structure MAGR. “AMC was building the plane while flying it,” Soltman says. They love waiting to see if a show is a hit to provide the definition. Then, they know they’re walking you into a deficit.” Also at issue: alleged self-dealing under an imputed license fee, which is intended to provide realistic, market-rate value in dealings involving a parent company and affiliated entity in order to replicate what the show would get if it were made by an independent studio. AMC put a cap on the imputed fee but not the corresponding costs, which became more expensive as the series continued, in a way that foreclosed any possibility of Erickson realizing backend payments, according to the complaint. The upshot, “AMC’s failure to provide a MAGR definition, until after it created its new streaming service, and then attributing such exploitation to the imputed fee, is further evidence of AMC’s bad faith and efforts to make the series-creators’ profit participation meaningless,” the lawsuit says. Erickson is represented by Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir, a powerhouse plaintiff-side profit participation law firm that represented Darabont in his lawsuit against AMC.“You Can’t Defund The Truth”: Stephen Colbert and David Remnick Champion Public Media Amid Funding Cuts at GalaSaudi Arabia Leads Effort to Pour $900 Million Into Hollywood AI Firm, Giving Kingdom a Foothold In Future of Entertainment. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the GoogleThe Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2025 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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