Paramount Faces Lawsuit Over Score of Upcoming Film

LOS ANGELES - The American Federation of Musicians has filed a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures, claiming that the studio lied about the music score of the upcoming film "Same Kind of Different as Me," starring Renee Zellweger.

According to the lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Los Angeles, Paramount has breached the terms of a collective bargaining agreement requiring that films produced in North America must also be scored there. The union sued all of the major studios on the same grounds in April.

“Only weeks after we filed suit against Paramount for offshoring jobs in other films, they did it again," said Ray Hair, AFM international president in a statement. "This total disrespect for musicians is shameful. It is nothing more than corporate greed."

In April, AFM claims, it sought to confirm that the Paramount film would be scored in the U.S. But the end of the month, AFM's general counsel was contacted by the studio to say the film had already been scored.

AFM claimed this was a lie.

AFM said that in fact, only part of the film's scoring was completed, and that Paramount was trying to buy time in order to complete the film score in Slovakia.