Suit Settled Against Leonardo DiCaprio, Another Actor

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has settled a $10 million lawsuit accusing him of conspiring to thwart the release of a low-budget film he made before achieving stardom in “Titanic,” lawyers for both sides said Friday.

Details of the settlement DiCaprio and fellow actor Tobey Maguire reached with a team of independent filmmakers led by producer David Stutman were not disclosed.

But a brief statement from attorneys said that under the deal, the movie in question, “Don’s Plum,” “will be distributed outside the United States, Canada and their territories.”

The settlement bars the film, described by its makers as a “twentysomething slice-of-life” tale set in a restaurant, from being shown commercially in the United States or Canada.

The breach-of-contract suit brought by Stutman in April 1998 charged that DiCaprio and Maguire, a lesser-known actor who starred in “Pleasantville,” deliberately blocked release of the movie for “their own egomaniacal purposes.”

“Using DiCaprio’s ‘clout’ as a newly anointed ‘superstar,’ they carried out a fraudulent and coercive campaign to prevent release of the film and destroy its value,” the suit said.

The movie, shot during six days in 1995 and 1996, is about a group of friends who gather at a diner one Saturday night for coffee and wide-ranging conversation about everything from drugs to masturbation.

DiCaprio has said through a publicist that he made the film as a favor for a friend with the understanding it would never be shown as a feature-length picture. According to DiCaprio’s camp, the movie originally was conceived as a black-and-white short with an improvised script.

Stutman, however, maintained that he was approached by DiCaprio and Maguire in 1995--two years before the release of the blockbuster “Titanic”--to make a film starring them and some of their friends.

He said an agreement was reached under which Stutman would produce and finance “Don’s Plum” and all the actors would receive equal billing and equal pay: $575 for each day’s shooting.

The film was made, and in June 1996 there was a private screening.

Maguire and his manager, however, were unhappy with Maguire’s performance in the movie, and Maguire subsequently enlisted DiCaprio to join him “in a campaign to prevent the release of the film,” Stutman said in his lawsuit.