18. Hollywood Accountants Take Money From the Authors

“Forrest Gump” is one of the biggest critical and financial successes in film history. The movie earned $677 million during wide release, with millions more being made from film rentals and sales in the years after.

It topped many critics’ year end lists and earned six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director for Robert Zemeckis, and a second Best Actor statue for Tom Hanks.

Today, “Gump” is widely considered among the greatest films of all time. Surely the author of the novel upon which it was based must be praising the film to high heaven, right?

Sadly, author Winston Groom didn’t get a dime of that $677 million for almost a decade. He was paid an upfront fee for his screenplay rights and then informed that the film was actually a box office failure. Groom remains one of the most notable victims of “Hollywood accounting”, where accountants will inflate a film’s costs after the fact so that they can claim a business loss and keep the gross revenue.

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It’s an unfortunately common practice in Hollywood. The “Harry Potter” films scored billions in ticket sales yet were still flops according to the accountants, as were most of the films bearing the “Spider-Man” character.

Paramount Pictures famously awarded screenwriter Art Buchwald a settlement of $900,000 when he filed suit against the company, preferring to shill out nearly a million dollars rather than have their accounting methods brought to light.