Although Spinal Tap is one of the most well-known mockumentaries ever made - and effectively birthed the genre in the process - its creators allegedly haven't seen one red cent from the film.
As we reported back in October of last year, Harry Shearer filed a lawsuit for $125 million against Vivendi in which he claimed that he had so far received just under $200 from merchandising and soundtrack sales for the film. He wasn't the only one who got screwed over by Hollywood accounting, either.
Today, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Rob Reiner joined Shearer's lawsuit and upped the figure to $400 million. According to the lawsuit, the original deal was that the creators would receive 40% of the net profits from the film. However, through Hollywood accounting, it's meant that Vivendi has managed to keep the film in a loss throughout that time.
In Reiner's statement, the director claimed that what makes the case so egregious "is the prolonged and deliberate concealment of profit and the purposeful manipulation of revenue allocation between various Vivendi subsidiaries."
Vivendi has yet to release a statement.