{"id":1038819,"date":"2026-09-02T12:20:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T12:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1038819\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T12:20:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T12:20:27","slug":"obsession-executive-producer-sues-for-not-being-paid-fairly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1038819\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Obsession’ executive producer sues for not being paid fairly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cObsession,\u201d<\/a> the indie horror <\/a>movie<\/a> written and directed by Curry Barker,<\/a> has proved to be one of this year\u2019s most successful films. Made for a reported budget of about $750,000, it has earned more than $500 million at the global box office since Focus Features released it in May \u2014 the biggest hit in the distributor\u2019s history, according to a new lawsuit.<\/p>\n

But one of its producers, Leonora Ann Darby, is claiming she hasn\u2019t received her share of the profit.<\/p>\n

Darby, who rose to become one of three producers at Tea Shop Productions, the U.K. company behind the movie, sued Tea Shop, its Delaware affiliate The Tea Shop & Film Company, and co-founders James Harris and Mark Lane in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The 135-page complaint lays out 10 causes of action \u2014 among them, breach of contract, retaliation for wage complaints, whistleblower retaliation and unfair competition \u2014 and describes a seven-year pattern of \u201cunequal treatment and broken compensation promises.\u201d Darby has demanded a jury trial.<\/p>\n

Harris and Lane allegedly treated Darby \u201cas their subordinate, including in a highly demeaning and gendered manner,\u201d and continually refused to compensate her properly, \u201cculminating in ruthlessly cutting Darby out of the overall net profits\u201d for \u201cObsession,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMs. Darby has brought serious and substantial claims, supported by a detailed factual record,\u201d Darby\u2019s lawyer Thomas K. Richards of the Beverly Hills firm Singh, Singh & Trauben, said in a statement. \u201cShe is confident in her case and intends to pursue it fully.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tea Shop has already rejected the core of her claim. In an Aug. 13 letter attached to the complaint as an exhibit, the company\u2019s lawyer wrote that Darby \u201cwas an employee and, subsequently, a consultant\u201d who has never been a member, shareholder or owner of Tea Shop, and therefore has no right to inspect the company\u2019s financial records. The parties\u2019 written agreement, the letter says, does not entitle her to profit participation or collection-account status on \u201cObsession\u201d or on any other film not previously identified in writing, and she \u201chas been compensated in accordance with the parties\u2019 agreement.\u201d Tea Shop Productions did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Darby is credited on screen as an executive producer of \u201cObsession,\u201d<\/a> rather than as a producer \u2014 a decision she says the company made despite Lane\u2019s absence from the production in 2025 and limited involvement with the film. She claims she functioned as a lead producer under Tea Shop\u2019s own internal definition, a distinction at the center of the case, because the profit deal she is suing over applies only to films she lead-produced.<\/p>\n

The complaint alleges that she stepped in at a point when the edit had been taken away from Barker and handed to a new editor, leaving the movie \u201cmired in an edit that was not working.\u201d She \u201cprovided fundamental and critical creative and structural notes that changed the course of the film,\u201d \u201cadvocated heavily\u201d for the edit to be returned to Barker, and recommended the reshoots that followed, according to the suit. She then took on the post-production, credits, clearance and delivery work that got the film finished in time for its Toronto International Film Festival premiere, where Focus bought it for about $16.2 million \u2014 well above the $14 million to $15 million that trades were reporting during negotiations.<\/p>\n

Once the value of the movie became apparent, the lawsuit alleges, she was iced out. She wasn\u2019t invited to the Los Angeles premiere and was \u201cdeliberately\u201d cut out of major trade articles and interviews, the suit says, including a May profile of Harris and Lane that didn\u2019t name her. Her name was added to that piece in August, after she complained.<\/p>\n

Darby first started working at the company in 2019, as a development and production executive. In this role, the lawsuit said, she was responsible for originating and developing projects, attaching filmmakers, assembling financing and producing films from preproduction through delivery. She originated and produced movies including \u201cA Banquet,\u201d \u201cTornado\u201d and \u201cThe Surfer,\u201d which stars Nicolas Cage.<\/p>\n

In 2024, she and Tea Shop allegedly reached an agreement raising her salary to 100,000 pounds and entitling her to a third of the net profits Tea Shop itself receives on films she lead-produced, \u201ctogether with direct participation in the applicable collection account management agreements\u201d \u2014 the deals that govern how money from a film is divided among its participants.<\/p>\n

Tea Shop has allegedly honored that arrangement on other films. On \u201cObsession,\u201d the complaint says, Darby was paid $300,000 out of the film\u2019s initial minimum guarantee after Tea Shop directed her company, Runt Productions, to invoice for \u201cServices: Obsession.\u201d That payment, the suit argues, was fixed compensation for her producing services \u2014 not a settlement, release or buyout, with no writing calling it full and final.<\/p>\n

In addition to her share of Tea Shop\u2019s profits on \u201cObsession,\u201d Darby is seeking a full accounting for several projects as well as unpaid wages, expenses and relief for retaliation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cObsession,\u201d the indie horror movie written and directed by Curry Barker, has proved to be one of this…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1038820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[38670,1582,276,28126,108388,415598,415595,2961,224,5337,415596,3196,415597,107048,415594,151234,178699,9951,27754,267921],"class_list":["post-1038819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-agreement","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-complaint","tag-darby","tag-executive-producer-sue","tag-film-company","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-mark-lane","tag-movie","tag-new-lawsuit","tag-obsession","tag-other-film","tag-producer","tag-profit","tag-retaliation","tag-suit","tag-tea-shop-productions"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1038819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1038820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}