It's always the nicest seeming franchises that cause the most trouble. Disney has been locked in legal wranglings with the owners of Winnie The Pooh for eons, Clive Cussler sued for millions over Sahara and even Peter Jackson had to go to court over profits from Lord Of The Rings. Now it's the turn of that family that owns the rights to Alvin and the Chipmunks to sue.
THR reports they've filed a lawsuit demanding half the profits from last year's Chipmunks Sqeakquel. It's all rather complicated, as legal proceedings seem to be, but basically amounts to the creator's son's wife feeling she wasn't adequately compensated for work she did on the screenplay for the sequel. As a result, she's listed a bunch of scenes she says she created but which were never paid for, and is claiming a 50% ownership of the screenplay, and therefore half the profits from the movie.
They also allege various other things, such as Fox reneging on a deal to pay them $3 million plus 2.5% of the film's gross, because the studio says the $3 million was an advance rather than an outright payment. They also say the studio failed in their obligation to take full advantage of the film's huge merchandising opportunity. This echoes a previous lawsuit the family filed against Universal in 2000. Back then that studio controlled the rights, and after getting sued for $105 million for allegedly not using them fully, they returned the property to the creator's son.
While the family may feel aggrieved, they could be shooting themselves in the foot. They've made a massive amount of money from the CG/live action films, and could make a lot more in the future. However if the litigation gets too nasty, it could well put Fox off from making any more movies, and make other studios a bit gunshy of boarding the Chipmunks train, if it looks like they're going to be sued sometime down the road.