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Century City boutique agency SDB Partners has filed suit against former client Chris Pine, whom SDB claims dumped them via email in November despite previous declarations of loyalty and appreciation for their hard work establishing his career. SDB claims Pine owes the agency commissions on projects including This Means War and his continuing role as Captain Kirk in Paramount’s rebooted Star Trek franchise. You can read details here, including specifics of Pine’s compensation at various stages of his developing career, from the suit filed today in LA Superior Court.
Chris Pine Sued By Former Agency SDB
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Hey Pine, don’t forget the little people who made you what you are…
This is crazy… Agents are paid 10% of the fee because they do 10% of the work. And all the insane parts of this classless legal document where SDB claims that they got Chris jobs would be funny if they weren’t so offensive. Agents don’t get anyone jobs. They pitch people in order to get actors APPOINTMENTS. Actors get the job. And actors do the job.
If Chris owes you money, fine. File a suit, specify what he owes you, and let the court sort it out. But using a lawsuit that you know will become public as a place to whine about being dropped by your client is classless. He stayed with you way longer than anyone else would have. And he isn’t at a new agent.
well put, agent.
What is classless is firing your agents via email- especially when they are the ones who brought you from obscurity to stardom. Grow some balls, Pine.
Read the whole article. His email stated they discussed his concerns and he wasn’t happy with what he was getting.
Sending the email is covering his ass. It’s in writing so SDB can’t pull some BS about never being dropped.
Couldn’t agree more. This agency is now dangerously close to tainting its own brand by allowing this to go public. It’s intent to embarrass its former client comes off as emotional and juvenile and will undoubtedly have negative precussions for them, more so than Pine.
If he owes, he owes. If this is about anything else (i.e. his “disloyalty”), then they just need to move on. He stuck with them a LOT longer than most up-and-comers/movie stars would. That’s the price of being a smaller agency.
Haters… It sucks he fired them that way but come on, stop the hate.
Hey… agencies drop talent too. Or did you forget…
“whether pine is being misguided by his handlers or has simply been blinded by his success and fame, pine apparently needs a refresher course on his obligation”
Sounds like an agency needs a refresher course on how commissions work…
This story has all the makings of a gripping courtroom drama. Who’s snapping up the right to it?
Seems like there is an awful lot of emotion in this complaint. It reads like a divorce proceeding and sounds childlike. Why couldn’t the plaintiffs just file formal, factual information instead of using descriptive and emotional words about Pine? Just curious.
As a legal assistant for a (mostly) family law attorney, I have to agree with this. I would never in my right mind write up such ridiculous and childish pleadings like these of SDB. Crazy!!!! Maybe that’s why he fired them via email – he knew them well enough to know they would go off half-cocked (and worse than they did) if he called or stopped by the office.
I don’t think this sort of personal business belongs aired out on the internet by third parties.
If SDB found those jobs and booked them for him (not very clear in the language of the suit whether or not that’s really the case), then Chris definitely owes them commission. But to say he owes future commissions on jobs they didn’t secure for him, based on the fact that they were influential in his career taking off, that’s obviously ridiculous.
Hahahah…. they’re basically suing on a “breach of loyalty” basis — good luck.
Notice how they have NO ACTUAL contractual basis, since they cite “the Pine/SDB IMPLIED agreement” as their authority for entitlement to pay. “Chris said he would be loyal to us but then he e-mailed us goodbye, and now we want 10% of his millions for hurting our feelings!”
Hey SDB — whatever you THINK you could get out of this lawsuit… how much will you lose in goodwill (and perhaps actual commissions) from current and potential actor-clients?
CA is a verbal state
The agency always wins. My first agency got all the money they were owed from Kelsey Grammar for Cheers and later, Frasier.
With Bryan Freedman repping SDB, pretty much done deal.
The only contract the agent had with the actor expired in 04. No matter what they did, or didn’t do, in securing him the big paychecks, they are screwed.
That’s actually not true at all. Many agencies don’t have paper contracts with their clients at all.
Move on but pay your obligations, you sleazeball. There is no mystery here….nothing ‘grey’. It’s black and white. The big agencies will understand.
If the whole suit is factual then he owes them big time.
Question though, is it regular practice to fire an agency through email now? Not even a phone call, let alone an actual meeting?
He DID meet with them. It says so in the formal complaint. He met them, then after much thought, fired them in writing. It was a respectable email, IMO.
I would agree that the complaint as filed comes across particularly emotional and paints an overly dramatic narrative rather than a series of tangible (legally viable) facts.
I understand that they need to spoon-feed the court the nature of our “biz” and the agent/client relationship but this case reads like a college paper pumped full of circular prose just to pad out the word count…
I’m also really curious when the last actual SAG/AFTRA film/television agency agreements were signed/renewed. It speaks of the initial ones signed back in 2003, but not a word of another contract since…just talk of the “implied” agreement. I realize oral/implied agreements can hold some water in court, but you wonder if this is going to bite them in the ass. (Of course, I say this realizing that the top agencies are more and more going with GSAs over union contracts)
I think SDB should be paid commissions for projects/contracts they got him to this point, but the minute one of those ‘multiple picture’ deals gets renegotiated, they’re SOL — this happens in television all the time. I’m not a fan of Pine particularly – he’s become quite the entitled douche since finding stardom – but this suit seems a little weak in how large its scope is.
I read the pdf in it’s entirety…
(1) SDB would have benefited greatly in removing all the emotional language from the document. at times, they sound like a jilted lover.
(2) Pine comes off as an asshole! What on earth could he have been unhappy with? From “that-one-guy-who-was-in-that-one-tv-show’s kid” to The Chris Pine: Captain Kirk, Jack Ryan. It seems to me, from the document, that SDB did a hell of a lot for this kid. The list of projects they procured for him would be the toast of any agency! What more could he possibly want?
(3) DAMN, Pine gets paid. I had no idea he was in that range. And given that he is pulling down $10+ million…he looks like even more of an ass for leaving. The days of $20M paydays are long gone. $10M is the new $20M…so he’s pretty much already reached the peak. And you left SBD why?
(4) LOL moment: SDB can kiss any “back-end” money from This Means War good-bye. BOMBED.
(5) in the end, SDB sounds childish but seems to have a pretty good case…and Pine looks impulsive and he looks like he will own a grip of cash.
Your points-and everyone’s on here) are all based on information provided by SDB’s lawyers. The Complaint frames the arguement and paints a picture. It is actually sleazy to lay out the facts and ‘emotions ‘ the way they did knowing it would end up in the public record.
Not a chance his handlers would be advising him not to pay, answer or give a formal seperation agreement (thought an email is binding, I’ll bet there is a certified letter floating around). If there is anything left vague his new reps wouldn’t be working for him as what they procurred could be damaged.
Just saying…
Are you kidding me? “…new reps wouldn’t be working for him…”? C’mon. You think any agency would pass on Chris Pine?
If he owes money…then he should pay. But slamming him as having a loyalty problem seems ludicrous, he was there 9 years. If this is about being bitter, that’s pretty ridiculous.
Wow, it appears they were one hell of a team. That sort of chemistry is hard to come by. Why risk it? I thought he said it well back in June of ’09:
“I’m a firm believer in loyalty. At the end of the day, this is a business, and you are a business, and I have felt in my career it has served me to stay with the people who started with me because I believe they’re as *passionate and as dedicated* as they have ever been.”
Anyway, it seems the commissions are certainly due.
Chris Pine sent the agency this e-mail below, he did not seem ungrateful in no time, and it seems obvious that they discussed it before, he just said what he decided on the subject.
“After much thought and consideration, I have decided that it is best for me to leave. I hope that you will understand that this decision was very difficult for me to make because I owe much of the success in my career to all of you. At our last group meeting I explained that I was frustrated and needed more than what I was getting from the agency. I thought that with some time, perhaps, my feelings might change but unfortunately they have not. Please know that I recognize what great advocates you have been for me and that you have invested your time and energy into building my career. None of this do I take lightly or for granted. That is why this has been so agonizing for me. I hope that you can respect my decision and accept it as final.
I wish you, Steven, Ro and Susie nothing but the best. Have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year. If you need to discuss anything further please contact, John.
WIth [sic] much appreciation and gratitude,”
I am a Pineteam fan, of course!
This agency approved the wording in this (non) lawsuit? What amatures! Ha! Go to college and get educated! What moronic lawyer wrote this complaint?
Amatures? Pot meet kettle…..
Client should always pay what’s owed. Should hardly need to be said.
Now that it is said, I find all that language – very commonly used – about “placing” him in such-and-such, and “building his career” to be so nonsensical and offensive. The actor auditioned for most of those roles, which means the agency secured an appointment. And, speaking only for me (and everyone I know), nobody “places” me anywhere other than myself.
Okay, agents. Hit me with your best shots.
It seems pretty clear cut. If they had signed contracts together, he can leave but owes them commission on any job they negotiated, plus any job he books within the contract dates. If they didn’t have signed contracts, the agency is screwed. It is obvious that he does not have any agency out clause available to him, as he has been constantly employed.
you don’t know what you’re talking about.
but neither do most people responding to this.
contracts do NOT have to be writing to be enforceable. if they negotiated the contract for Pine (and I assume they did), then they will be commissionable.
moreover, since Pine fired them, then logic would reason that they were indeed his agent.
right?
you don’t fire someone as your agent if they’re not your agent.
note I do not opine (oh, bad pun, sorry) about SDP PR tactics.
other than to say, they WILL get paid the commissions.
The agents deserve their commissions on all work they negotiated. Most agents only dream of making these kind of commissions…..as do actors. They earned their money just as much as Pine did.
So far, if those ST deals really were renegotiated which might mean they get nothing, it looks like he owes them 182K (107K missing from the TMW deal, and 85K from the Welcome to People contract) + the 10% sequel option that Paramount greenlit in April (so +150K). I might’ve missed something else though… Thoughts?
@Harry P: Not sure how it works in the industry, but you have a good point about them being screwed if nothing was written down.
The unfortunate lesson that a young actor would draw from this complaint is that it makes sense to fire your small agency as soon as you’re able to make the leap to CAA, otherwise you risk a messy, emotional public divorce. Of course, that’s exactly what most young actors do.
I also question this agency’s wisdom in pursuing this so publicly.
No, the lesson here is to pay your agents their owed commissions. If Pine had acknowledged his debt that would have been the end of it. It doesn’t matter whether it is one year or 10 years, if you refuse to pay things are bound to become messy.
Also, the complaint says they reached out to him in a letter to handle it privately and he never responded. So the only other option was to sue and court records are public.
How was it you see that they pursued this publicly? They had lawyers file a lawsuit. That people in this town then go to the public records and share it on the internet is where the problem starts, not with the agents, who deserve to be paid. And the language is so obviously just put there to point to Pine’s own attitude toward them as a way of strengthening their case, not because they are bitter or mean. Come on people. This is how the law works.
All the emotional legal language notwithstanding there are several issues at play here:
- Obviously he had long standing connections to his agents, so for him to take the easy way out and fire them via email or a letter is just chicken behavior. He should have called and followed up with email and certified letter. Never an easy thing to do, but surely he could have gotten on a conference call with his manager and handled it that way.
- Why don’t agencies have their talent sign new agreements every year? Doing business in the 21st century without an agreement seems ill-advised even though all the agencies do it. The talent dictates…
- Wouldn’t the agency be entitled to their commissions on a three picture deal that they negotiated even if it gets renegotiated later since he wouldn’t even be in the deal if they didn’t do the work in the first place? There’s probably tons of cases that have been similar in the past. If he’s such a loyal guy he’ll realize that he wouldn’t have been in the room if they didn’t assist in putting him there in the first place. I’m not saying they worked hard, anyone could have done it presumably once he had some heat, but they were there.
- Who the fuck is SDB? I’ve never heard of them before. Way to go at getting your name out there! At least this gets their name in the mix.
- Obviously he stuck with them way longer than any other actor would have in his position so the agency ought to get paid for the work they did, and stick to the facts in their legal filings. There is clearly some bitterness and it comes out in the legal filing.
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