Man Claims Rights to ‘American Psycho’ Musical

LOS ANGELES (CN) - Producers of a musical stage version of Brett Easton Ellis' novel "American Psycho" shut out the guy who came up with the idea for the musical, the man claims in court.

Nate Bolotin sued The Johnson-Roessler Company and ACT 4 Entertainment, in Superior Court.

Bolotin claims he came up with the idea for an "American Psycho" musical more than five years ago. He claims he worked with the (nonparty) Collective Management Group to bring the project to the stage, but parted ways with it after a year, in June 2008, and secured a separation agreement.

Act 4 Entertainment spokesman Scott Langham told Courthouse News that the company "will be vigorously contesting the claims."

"Mr. Bolotin's claim has no merit whatsoever," Langham said in an email. "Mr. Bolotin never had a contract or agreement of any kind with the Johnson-Roessler Company, now known as Act 4 Entertainment. The agreement referred to between The Collective and Johnson-Roessler was terminated by the terms of the contract, by the passage of time and by the mutual consent of The Collective and Act 4. We intend to vigorously defend ourselves and, at the same time, to assert all claims and remedies available to us."

Bolotin claims that under the terms of the contract he agreed to develop the musical in exchange for paying the management company a 25 percent cut of any money he received from the project. Collective agreed to pay him a 75 percent share of the musical's revenue, he claims.

"Plaintiff continued to work diligently to see the project come to fruition after the separation agreement was executed," the lawsuit states.

Later that year, Collective partnered with Johnson-Roessler and ACT 4, Bolotin claims. He says the parties were "fully aware" of the separation agreement and his right to 37.5 percent of income from the musical as a "third-party beneficiary" of the original partnership.

But Bolotin claims that in August 2012 the defendants shut him out of the project under the pretense that he had violated the agreement, "without any justifiable basis for doing so."

Ellis' violent novel about a Manhattan banker-cum-serial killer was published in 1991. A movie adaptation followed in 2000, starring Christian Bale. The musical opened at the Almeida Theatre in London in December.

Ellis is not a party to the complaint.

Bolotin seeks damages for breach of contract and tortious interference with contractual relations, lost earnings and costs.

He is represented by Scott Carr with Greene Broillet & Wheeler of Santa Monica.

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