The Jim Henson Company, the puppet-based production house behind The Muppet Show, The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, has been sued by a film producer who ran its feature film department and says he hasn’t seen his share of profits or proper credits on a trio of movies he developed.
Jason Lust claims the company reneged on the terms of a 2015 settlement guaranteeing him profit participation and executive producer billing on Pinocchio, Fraggle Rock and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip. He seeks at least $7.5 million in the breach of contract suit.
Founded in 1955 by puppeteer Jim Henson as Muppets Inc., The Jim Henson Company was behind the popular variety series The Muppet Show, which ran for five seasons. Lust, founder of Circle Management (The Matrix, The Walking Dead), ran its feature film department for nearly eight years, departing on not-so-great terms following what he calls in the complaint as a “series of abuses related to his contract and diminishment of his credits and fees.”
In the suit, filed in California state court last week, Lust claims he hasn’t been paid a 15 percent production bonus of the company’s producing fee or 10 percent of the production house’s profits for the movie under a deal he reached over his departure. He alleges he was supposed to get an executive producer credit or, in the alternative if such billing wasn’t possible, a $20,000 fee.
Lust initiated the project, brought writer Rob Liever and producer Sean Levy and Dan Levine onto the project, along with coordinating production with 21 Laps to package and produce Alexander, according to the complaint. It made more than $100 million against a $28 million budget.
Another title Lust developed while at The Jim Henson company was Fraggle Rock, which was supposed to be made into a feature film rather than at Apple TV series. Like Alexander, he alleges he was slated to get a production bonus and profit participation, as well as an executive producer credit.
Also at issue in the suit: Guillermo Del Toro’s Academy Award-winning animated feature Pinocchio. Lust says he brought the Gris Grimly book over from Circle Management, with the understanding that he’d produce the film with the production house. Per the complaint, he brokered discussions with Del Toro and Mark Gustafson for the duo to direct the project and secured significant financing to develop the art and script for the movie, which he developed for nearly eight years.
But after he left he left the company in 2021, Lust says he was stonewalled from continuing to work on the title. Although he ultimately got an executive producer credit, he alleges it was severely diminished. Instead of the standard placement on the film’s poster as initially agreed, he says his billing was buried until the end of the credit scrolls after cast and crew.
In 2012, Lust initiated an arbitration over his departure from The Jim Henson Company, which didn’t respond to a request for comment. He was paid $225,000, among other things, under a settlement that also considered his credit and compensation on canned films “Which Witch” and “Curiosities.”
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