No end in sight for legal dispute over Roberto Clemente biopic

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A Superior Court judge declined Friday to dismiss a cross-complaint filed by a production company over the rights to the life story of Roberto Clemente, a legendary Puerto Rican outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates who died tragically in a plane crash at age 38 while en route to bring emergency relief to Nicaraguan earthquake survivors.

An independent film production company, “Inside the Park,” sued the Clemente family, their agents and two Hollywood companies in 2024, accusing them of scheming to “fraudulently sell and resell the rights to baseball great Roberto Clemente’s life story for their own, substantial financial gain.”

Inside the Park claims it paid $50,000 for the exclusive right to bring Clemente’s story to the screen. The company announced the news to the trade press only to discover, to their shock, that Clemente’s life rights had already been sold all the way back in 2015 to Legendary Entertainment, a much larger production company that has turned out such movies as Batman Begins and the Hangover series. The money was eventually returned, but Inside the Park is seeking more than $5 million in damages, claiming they were used to generate publicity for the floundering project, which has yet to be produced.

“After plaintiff worked for two years with A-list talent throughout the industry to get the Roberto Clemente film project off the ground, defendants’ fraud and breach of contract has caused plaintiff substantial reputational damage, above and beyond its wasted time, effort and out of pocket expenses,” Inside the Park wrote in its complaint.

The lawsuit cleared its first legal hurdle earlier this year, when the judge overruled a demurrer filed by the Clemente family’s agent and Teton Ridge Entertainment, a production company that is also named as a defendant because it optioned the Clemente rights from Legendary Entertainment. Shortly after that ruling, Teton Ridge filed a cross-complaint over, among other things, intentional interference with contractual relations, accusing Inside the Park of trying to muscle its way into the Clemente biopic business “at any cost.”

“[Inside the Park] improperly concocted and has executed on its scheme to stymie Teton’s attempt to bring a Roberto Clemente film to market and to insert ITP (and its principals) as producers on Teton’s film,” Teton Ridge wrote in its cross-complaint.

Inside the Park filed an anti-SLAPP motion in an attempt to dismiss the cross-complaint, arguing that the suit was based on protected activity — namely, communicating with the Clemente family and the press, and filing a lawsuit.

Superior Court Judge Teresa Beaudet agreed that some of the action taken by Inside the Park qualified as protected activity — speaking to the press, for example — but found there was still enough merit in the cross-complaint to move forward.

“The evidence shows,” she wrote in her tentative ruling, later adopted as final, that the plaintiffs, “upon discovering that Legendary did in fact own the life rights, attempted to convince the Clementes to breach their contract with Legendary and to act to enforce their agreement over the life rights despite Legendary’s ownership of the life rights.” She added: “Teton provided evidence that its inability to make, sell, market and promote a film based on the life rights was a result of ITP’s competing claim for the life rights.”

Beaudet did agree to strike one cause of action, for negligent interference with contractual relations, and she rejected a request from Teton Ridge to be awarded attorney’s fees.

Neither side offered much in the way of argument, and essentially accepted the ruling.

And so the case will plod on. A jury trial has been tentatively scheduled for June 2026.

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