Buchwald Case: ‘A Morass’ for Writers Guild

On Dec. 11, one week before the Buchwald vs. Paramount trial began in Los Angeles Superior Court, attorneys for the syndicated columnist sent a letter to the Writers Guild of America demanding “maximum action” against Paramount for failing to grant story credit on “Coming to America” to Art Buchwald.

“We can certainly teach Paramount a valuable lesson in the courtroom,” wrote Pierce O’Donnell, Buchwald’s lawyer. “But much more must be done. Unless the Writers Guild acts decisively to protect its prerogatives and enforce the unambiguous terms of the Basic Agreement on credits, the status of writers will be diminished. In our view, writers are at war over a fundamental principle and the guild cannot remain neutral.”

Officially, the guild has remained neutral.

Privately, however, guild members say that the Buchwald decision and the dilemma it has put before the guild leadership has wrought chaos.

“Quite frankly, it’s a morass,” a key player in the guild’s leadership told The Times after a Monday evening guild board meeting at which the Buchwald verdict, which was announced that morning, was the central topic of discussion.

Monday night’s board meeting guaranteed that a full investigation will be launched before the week is out into how Buchwald’s 1983 story treatment and the subsequent scripts developed from that treatment were kept out of the story credit arbitration process.

A spokeswoman for the 8,000-member union maintained publicly on Tuesday that its position remains unchanged, regardless of Buchwald’s partial court victory Monday. Guild executives need time to review Judge Harvey Schneider’s 34-page decision granting the humorist contract damages before they can act, according to the spokeswoman.

In its routine arbitration process, the guild and Paramount Pictures agreed before the 1988 megahit was released to give Eddie Murphy story credit while screenwriting credit was to be granted to guild members Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield.

Screen credit is important, not just because it looks good on a Hollywood resume, but also because credit often figures into the contractual percentages that a writer ultimately receives from box-office receipts, videocassette sales or TV residuals.

In the Buchwald case, the columnist’s original contract with Paramount required the studio to give him 1.5% of the net profits from any film made from his story, “King for a Day.” Producer Alain Bernheim, who signed a similar contract with Paramount to produce “King for a Day,” was to receive 17.5% of the net.

According to Paramount executives and the studio’s lawyers, “Coming to America” has not yet earned a net profit and may never earn a net profit. The movie, which Judge Schneider said is “based upon” Buchwald’s story, has, by the studio’s own public statements, grossed an estimated $350 million.

Paramount plans to appeal Schneider’s verdict.

Several entertainment law experts have already dubbed the well-documented decision “appeal proof” and say that it puts the Guild’s arbitrated decision on story credit in question. In his Dec. 11 letter, O’Donnell asked for sanctions against Paramount, including the possibility that the film making giant be added to the guild’s strike list--a roster of production companies that never signed or violated the guild’s Basic Agreement, negotiated with the Assn. of Motion Picture and Television Producers during a lengthy strike two years ago.

Guild sources say such drastic action against Paramount probably will not happen.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Buchwald, a member of the Writers Guild of America, East, said that realistically he didn’t care whether he gets the “based upon” credit for the story that Schneider’s ruling granted him Monday.

“To be honest, there’s never been any question of credit,” Buchwald said. “I’m glad it’s over. I’m just happy I won and I want to go home. I want my mommy.”

Continuing in a humorous vein, he added that he has a recurring fantasy “that Paramount has to recall every videocassette in America and put my name on the credits.”

Judging by the headlines, talk shows and TV news leads that aired following Judge Harvey Schneider’s ruling that Buchwald did, indeed, write the story that “Coming to America” was based upon, the Washington-based writer sent a resounding message across the country that a major studio cannot contract with a well-known author and then fail to meet the terms of that contract.

Whether the message was heard in Hollywood, however, remains to be seen.