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Indeed, actors, directors and writers commonly complain that studios cheat them out of the "points," or percentages of the film's profits, for which they make contracts. Hollywood's contracts are so complicated that almost no one can understand them; the definition of "net profit" takes up seven pages of single-spaced type in one studio's contract. "Net profits" and "gross receipts" for a film rarely mean what they imply in other businesses, and the studio often can and does add on exorbitant overhead charges, deduct all manner of "expenses," and play with foreign costs and taxes.
A onetime Columbia executive cites the example of Funny Girl, which cost $6 million to produce but was not accounted in the black until it had taken in $30 million in gross receipts. David Merrick complains that independent producers like himself are grossly overcharged for "overhead" by the studios: "They always manage to throw in the kitchen sink." Jeff Wald, who manages Sylvester Stallone (Rocky), says that the independents must be constantly on guard against the studios' chicanery: "They'll build the sets needed for your picture on Saturday and Sunday, when you have to pay double time." Actor Tony Curtis adds that "a studio executive will fly down to Acapulco with 14 of his chicklets and charge the trip against profits." Curtis contends that movie companies have cheated him for years, and asks: "If that's the way they treat a dude like me, who's got a reputation and an image, how do you think they treat a guy they've never heard of?"
Disputes over bookkeeping and vagaries in reporting foreign receipts lead to continual strife. Actors Sean Connery and Michael Caine sued Allied Artists for $109,146 each to retrieve profits that they contend were understated for The Man Who Would Be King. Such suits are usually settled out of court. Bringing them to trial, say actors and their lawyers, would be enormously costly and would pose a risk of blacklisting for the troublemaking plaintiffs. In their own defense, studio executives claim that they tack on only the costs required to meet their legitimate expenses and overhead. And they have a big overhead, they add, to cover their losses from films that bomb out. Robert Evans, who has been both a studio chief (Paramount) and an independent producer, agrees with that reasoning. Says he: "Who pays the $21 million loss on The Sorcerer? The studio."
Risk, of course, justifies a high rate of return, but not chicanery. The Begelman affair reawakens old suspicions about Hollywood—that it is dominated by a handful of imperious men who can benefit from a double scale of justice and a one-sided set of books.