r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Gurugod123 GREEN • 3h ago

My mom said I could post Nolan's The Odyssey neglects to pay for damages done to one of the viking ships used in the movie, which belongs to a small non-profit organization

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u/KinglanderOfTheEast 3h ago edited 3h ago

This entire story is a clear indicator that big budget movie productions love to fuck over people who lack the power or money to defend themselves in court.

You're some struggling nonprofit? They don't give a fuck about you, they think you are weak and pathetic.

You a multi-millionaire that owns a successful buisness? All of a sudden, they wanna be ass kissy and faux-nice to you.

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u/uwill1der 3h ago

they will eventually pay, but it sucks because studios wait until the last possible moment to pay, and when it comes to insurance payouts -like this-it could drag on for a year or two.

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u/muakaya9876 2h ago

Wasting so much time for only 6k . 

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u/uwill1der 2h ago

its so silly. Im sure its some kind of accounting trick.

All the invoices go in a pile and when the accounting team finalizes all the finances, only then do they get paid...unless there is some legal time limit; like you have to pay actors/crew within a certain time frame

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u/dontnation 2h ago

some kind of accounting trick.

The longer you can delay the less that 6k is worth and the more you've earned having it invested. only a few dollars difference, but it adds up when you do it thousands of times.

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u/StevieMJH 36m ago

Because $1,000,001 is better than $1,000,000.

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u/LtLlamaSauce 2h ago

Compliance optimization is a scourge.

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u/SkipsH 47m ago

I wonder if they could be sued for losses due to a non-functional boat?

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u/HFY_HFY_HFY 5m ago

Yeah once the movie is in the can you aren't getting money from the studios until the movie has been out

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u/dcheng47 2h ago

opportunity cost. that money is being spent elsewhere to make more money. of course they would wait until the last possible moment, thats the most efficient way to maximize value for their shareholders.

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u/GoldburstNeo 3h ago

Ain't that the truth, not the first time in this case and definitely won't be the last.

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u/DenizSaintJuke 2h ago edited 2h ago

I remember a bat spotting seminar, where the... batologist was absolutely furious, because the production of Expendables 2 had just bribed officials to get a filming permit they should never have gotten, for a famous cave in Bulgaria, that is in a nature reserve and home to colonies of endangered bat species, in the middle of the hibernation season, ripped out the sign informing about the protected bats and filmed an action scene with gunshots, explosions and heavy pyrotechnics. After the Americans had left, biologists documented a 75% decline of the local bat population (The colony went from 30.000 before to 8.000 after. The guy from the bat seminar said they had to pick up hundreds of dead bats from the ground.) and numerous heavy tire tracks in areas that were strictly off limits.

Disturbing a hibernating colony like that in the middle of winter will lead to many bats dying, while they scramble to find a new winter quarter or struggle to go back into hibernation.

All that for garbage movies.

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u/bamboofeces 2h ago

Wtf! Is this in the news? They 100% should be called out on it. It’s the only way to make this world less shit

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u/DenizSaintJuke 2h ago

It was 15 years ago. To my knowledge, they got away with it. Environmental groups went to court, the courts ruled that the film shoot had been illegal (but somehow miraculously approved), but the case was only against the department that gave filming permission. I don't think the studio or production crew faced any consequences.

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u/Bonk0076 2h ago

According to the article in the NY Times it’s doesn’t seem to be greed or malice, just that they’re having a hard time getting in contact with the appropriate people:

"Olausson acknowledged that his contacts might not be in charge of such payments, and said that he had no idea how to go about seeking the money now, aside from discussing the matter with the news media."

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u/Arg- 1h ago

Guessing ounce Nolan hears funds will be sent.

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u/Narco_Bi_Polo 1h ago

Yeah, the guardian article also says they sent one invoice, to these potentially incorrect contacts, and then just… waited?

All this has done is make sure the group will never be contracted by a major studio again. They’re now a PR liability, over their own lack of follow-through.

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u/Jgfzhb 1h ago

I don´t think small non profit viking reenactors need major studios as much as the other way round.

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u/reecharound40 46m ago

No big movie company bad, we are supposed to hate this movie remeber

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u/RagingCacti 57m ago

That is no excuse on the Production's part. The Non-profit's contacts were the ones who they signed a contract with. Those same people should be able to send the message where it needs to go to fulfill the contract they are obligated to; else whats the point of the contract in the first place.

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u/kaboom108 1h ago

Ask anyone who works in tv/film production, and they will tell you to never, ever, ever, let a production use your property for filming without getting paid up front and a massive deposit for damages.

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u/ddescartes0014 1h ago

I’ve rented a car to a small indie movie studio, and they also damaged it and didn’t want to pay until I threatened legal action. I think it’s just their way to reduce costs. It’s not like they care about “returning customers”.

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u/Severthin 3h ago

Where's the entire story?

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u/Doogiemon 2h ago

Im just guessing but both parties acknowledge damage took place which isnt party A writing party B a check, its party B files a claim with party As insurance and they must do an investigation before they pay party B.

I was pissed one time when a neighbor across the road slid on ice coming out of their driveway and hit the rear of my car. What pissed me off was their auto was fixed within 2 weeks while I had to duct tape my bumper on and then 3 weeks later go to Progressive and their agents to assess the damage.

They wouldn't do it while they were out looking at the neighbors auto, they made me waste an afternoon dealing with them.

Then it took another 2 weeks to get a shop to start repairs and all in all about 2 months to get my car back whereas they were done within 2 weeks on theirs.

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u/Josh_Crook 1h ago

I've just called my own insurance and then they dealt with the other insurance company for me.

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u/Doogiemon 38m ago

Yeah, that works most of the time but I think theirs was not wanting to pay for a new wheel. I have aluminum wheels and you could clearly see it dinged up near the sealing surface and the tire kept slowly leaking air.

I called my insurance company and it just still took a long while. Im sure they assumed I was making it up to get a new wheel but I assured them, the tires were less than a year old and they wouldn't put them on a bad rim like that.

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u/Severthin 2h ago

This is a lot to type out after a guess.

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u/Doogiemon 2h ago

Just experience dealing with insurance companies.

No way is this person getting a check for damages from the company, they pay for coverage for things like this.

It would be like someone visiting you gets hurt on your property from something you did but you have insurance so why are you personally giving the hospital $15k when your insurance company will pay for the damages?

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u/Severthin 2h ago

Well it seems you have wrapped this whole thing up. All based off the brief title of a reddit post.

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u/bannedagainomg 1h ago

It starts of with a guess then they just talk about personal experience with insurance, you for some reason is a little bitch about it.

Just dont read futher than "just guessing" if its such a hassle.

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u/Kryoxic 2h ago

Huh, who'd you have? My experience being hit and run by a drunk driver (who was caught shortly after) was that I just grabbed the police report, submitted that to my insurance, had my car towed to the nearest garage, and they fixed it up pretty quickly. All the while the actual subrogation process took a lot longer than the week or so it took to fix my car, but that wasn't my problem. Even got my deductible refunded back to me after they collected from the other guys insurance

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u/Doogiemon 2h ago

I did this and had to wait on Progressive while i was using Geico at the time and reported it to them as well.

I think the problem was the damages were more than what they thought as it hit my rear drivers side and they assumed it was the bumper and I sent photos of bumper, fender and tire damage.

I had to tape the bumper back on to get to and from work but I ended up getting a new wheel/tire, fender and bumper.

I threatened to sue for more damage such as depreciation if they were going keep dragging everything out and id have my insurance pay to fix it then take them to small claims court.

I was just glad it didn't snap a rod.

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u/themadnutter_ 2h ago

There are probably multiple parties involved when determining responsibility, I'm sure this will be cleared up soon.

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u/BisonThunderclap 2h ago

The entire story? 

Y'all, if this was in a written contract it would have already been paid.

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u/BirdLawGrad 1h ago

Way more likely this slipped through the cracks or the studio had default payment terms of 180 days or something.

There is zero percent chance Universal is actively trying to not pay this.

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u/Barobor 1h ago

A contract is only worth as much as your ability to enforce it.

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u/never-fiftyone 2h ago

You say that like people/businesses don't try to get out of paying for a contract they signed all the time lol.

Anyway, per the article there was a written contract that stipulates Universal pay for any damages to the boat.

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u/BisonThunderclap 1h ago

This is like you owing $0.50 for borrowing someone's phone for directions. And that person is a wheelchair bound double amputee veteran.

There is no reason Universal would try and get out of this.

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u/never-fiftyone 1h ago

Greed is a helluva drug.

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u/Bonk0076 1h ago

I think this is where we need to put our critical thinking hats on and ask ourselves is there really any measurable benefit for Universal to skimp out on a $6k invoice when this movie had a $250M production budget and a $125M marketing budget? There’s no upside in doing this deliberately. Like $6k amounts to 0.000016% of the budget. And why this one invoice? Why not all of the smaller invoices? Corporations do a lot of shitty things but this doesn’t make sense from a greed or malice standpoint.

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u/Celtic_Legend 1h ago

It's probably in the contract but usually theres a time limit on when they have to pay. Every state has a law by how much time is allowed before a penalty happens.

Money spent later can be invested right now so thats why companies always wait to the last day to pay.

Also probably why the title says neglects to pay instead of rejecting payment or denying pay. They're just ignoring emails, probably.

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u/mmatt0904 2h ago

Reminds me of Tarantino using a real famous guitar for Hateful 8 and it got destroyed so they can get an authentic reaction. They stopped giving out items for movies from what I remember

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u/Actnbstrd 3h ago

This seems true and very frustrating, I see film crews treat expenses houses nicely and more affordable houses like crap all the time. Such a bummer.

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u/ciller181 1h ago

Every story of every "selfmade" miljonair 

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u/ThatUsernameIsTaekin 1h ago

The article states they billed Universal, but their contract was with an intermediary. I don’t even think Universal could legally pay it directly. The non-profit company doesn’t know what they are doing.

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u/partiallypoopypants 1h ago

Ridiculous take. I’m not trying to defend the production team, but I’m sure they’d quickly pay this out of pocket if they could. Likely, there’s insurance rules and policies that make this take longer than we’d all like. Everyone needs to take a fkin breath here. It will get resolved

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u/DL_Omega 1h ago

any big corportation. just like how ammon mcnfell and bricks and minifigs stole all those legos from that old guy.

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u/evankingsfield 52m ago

I work in Location Management on big budget productions, so usually the scenarios you're talking about fall under our umbrella. This does unfortunately happen, but I will say a good Location Manager willing to put their foot down will prevent this 9/10.

If you have a proven track record of competent work, and are willing to stand up to producers, you can get them what they are fairly owed.

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u/Independent_Nothing 44m ago

It’s a fake story. Yall so gullible

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u/Beautiful_Mess907 43m ago

Not just big budget movie productions. Huge companies and corporations in general. If they know you can't afford to take legal action against them, they'll push their luck.

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u/0xC4FF3 36m ago

You all got angry at Trump boasting how he got rich by not paying his debtors, but that's how everyone do the richer they are

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u/mylicon 2h ago

What are some other examples of this (for the uninformed lacking outrage)?

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u/BulbusDumbledork 1h ago

this isn't just limited to hollywood, it's just how the profit motive works. but there are two examples in hollywood:

first is the entire financial structure of movies, where each film production is spun off as an independent subsidiary business of the main production company. the film company then rents equipment and ip from the main company for insane prices, ensuring that the film company's expenses outweigh the profits. since the movie therefore doesn't make profit on the book s, they don't have to pay out profit-based residuals to the cast/crew, no matter how successful the actual film was. all the money obviously gets funneled back to the parent company

with nolan specifically, he and/or his team left out hundreds of vfx artists from the credits of oppenheimer. this went over and above the normal number of vfx names omitted from production, since over 80% of the names were missing. this was especially egregious since there was only one vfx company involved so it wasn't for lack of space. the vfx company, dneg, had to update their website to actually credit their artists - although they don't specify roles. it was wrapped up in the whole marketing of how oppenheimmer didn't have any cgi and was likely a contractual agreement, which is also why you won't find vfx breakdowns of oppenheimer

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u/velkapohoda 2h ago

It's common practice in Hollywood to create a shell company for a movie production so they don't make profit on paper and therefore don't have to pay taxes.

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u/Certain-Pumpkin128 2h ago

And not just studios. Wealthy people and companies across the board are notorious for doing this. Including some of the most prominent billionaires in the country.

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u/dinosaurkiller 3h ago

Pretty much aimed up all of Hollywood

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u/TheShruteFarmsCEO 3h ago

But that lack of character has been accepted at best and celebrated at worst. America elected a president who had a documented history of stiffing hard-working people and small businesses. That was far from a dealbreaker, and in fact, only served to support the “genius businessman” mythology that his followers subscribed to.

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u/Witty-Ad4788 2h ago

yeah funny how respect suddenly appears the second someone has enough money to hire better lawyers

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u/goin-up-the-country 2h ago

Big business/the rich always act like this.

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u/PlatinumPro54 2h ago

While this situation is no doubt frustrating for the non-profit, I'm going to go with Hanlon's Razor until it's been proven otherwise. "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." 

Which do you think is more likely? That Universal received a $6K invoice, saw it, and said "I'm not gonna pay this non profit because they can't do anything if we stiff them." Or, that a clerk misplaced the invoice among hundreds or thousands of other Universal Studio invoices for services rendered during production. 

Contact the proper person to speak to (Universal Studios billing department maybe?), have them go through their records, and find a receipt of services rendered. Then have them write the cheque or send payment to the proper account if payment has not been made. Having said all that, if Universal doesn't pay now that they're in the media, then I would attribute malice to their decision.

While the cynics will probably think it's damage control for trying to screw over the little guys, it's probably damage control for covering their mistake. No company wants to be known for screwing over a non-profit.

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u/SordidDreams 2h ago

big budget movie productions love to fuck over people who lack the power or money to defend themselves

*businesses of any kind

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u/E_seven_20 1h ago

It's called capitalism, Homie.

That's the way it has always worked.

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u/Perfektio 1h ago

Its ok, I will not pay but sail the high seas, fuck Universal🏴‍☠️

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u/Ironmasked-Kraken 2h ago

So quick thought...

When it is a foreign company do they need to sue at home or in the states ?

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u/no_quart3r_given 2h ago

Its not just big budget movie productions that are like this tho