FATAL SUBTRACTION

Boff Hollywood trial epic in which Art Buchwald, his screenwriter/producer partner Alan Bernheim, and legal whiz Pierce O'Donnell battle Paramount Pictures over Buchwald's part in the script of Eddie Murphy's dizzyingly successful Coming to America. After Buchwald goes to the Capawock Theater on Martha's Vineyard to see Paramount's new Eddie Murphy comedy (about an African king who comes to the States, finds a wife in Queens, and takes her back home to marry), he arms his sling with stones and goes looking for Paramount. The story, in part, is taken from a treatment Buchwald sold to Paramount, which then spent over a half million on scripts (the first being by Bernheim) for this Murphy vehicle. Aside from cash, Buchwald-Bernheim were offered points in the picture's net profits, should it be made and there be such profits. Then the top execs who bought Buchwald's story and put it into development moved to other companies and the Buchwald/Bernheim script was dropped. The authors resold it, to Warner Brothers, but then Paramount announced Coming to America and Warner dropped its flick as too similar to the new Murphy vehicle. Enter O'Donnell (writing here with Los Angeles Times entertainment reporter McDougal), whose legal firm breaks a rule and takes the case on contingency. Paramount and its legal team deny any theft of Buchwald's ideas but then find themselves defending Hollywood's net-profits clause, which allows a studio to deduct its overall losses from its hits' earnings. Huge stars get points in gross profits, but, through creative accounting, small-time creators are denied rewards, despite a film's massive returns. Here, the case's legal stages are spellbinding and not excessively detailed. Don't miss Buchwald's drolleries to the servile Writers Guild of America or Eddie Murphy's toothy two-day deposition, though he's a no-show at the clause-busting trial. You'll never eat net profits in these contracts again. (B&w photographs—not seen.)