By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer
1 hour, 35 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES – A judge approved an agreement calling for Sony Pictures Entertainment to pay $1.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the studio of citing a fake movie critic in ads for several films, an attorney said Tuesday.
Moviegoers who saw the films “Vertical Limit,” “A Knight’s Tale,” “The Animal,” “Hollow Man” or “The Patriot” during their original theater runs must file a claim to be eligible for a $5 per ticket reimbursement, said lawyer Norman Blumenthal, who represented a group of filmgoers who sued Sony Pictures in 2001.
Any funds remaining after claims are satisfied would go to charity, he said.
Sony Pictures declined comment. The studio did not admit any liability under terms of the settlement.
After the dispute came to light, the studio temporarily suspended two executives and vowed to monitor its publicity and advertising more closely.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl entered a final judgment in the case last month, Blumenthal said.
The lawsuit, originally filed by two California moviegoers, claimed the ads fooled the plaintiffs into seeing “A Knight’s Tale.”
In one ad for the action-comedy, a critic identified as “David Manning of The Ridgefield Press” was quoted calling star Heath Ledger “this year’s hottest new star!”
In an ad for “The Animal,” Manning was quoted declaring, “The producing team of ‘Big Daddy’ has delivered another winner!”
At the time, The Ridgefield Press, a small weekly newspaper in Connecticut, did not have a movie critic named David Manning, the lawsuit said.
Some of the movies Manning praised had already received positive reviews from real critics.
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Sony learned this tactic from the Bush administration!
How do you sell a pile of crap? Hire someone to pretend they’re independant to say nice things.
Sony learned this tactic from the Bush administration!
Democrats were defrauding the public long before Bush was born. Why is it when a Democrat is in office their escapades always end in gate?
Right:
I am surprised you didn’t go with the “out of control” litigation response on this one. I would have probably agreed with you, seeing bad movies is part of life and I don’t think we need to be protected from them.
Bush paying columnist to say nice things about nis policies is different because he was using taxpayer money and the president should not have to mislead people to get them to agree with him. Maybe the prez and his pals should have presented an honest case for going to war, rather than trying to make stuff up, and they would not be involved in Plamegate.
BTW, I lost track of our last argument but the Boyscouts still suck.