Puzo estate sues over Godfather games
Still waiting for its cut.
The son of late author Mario Puzo has sued Paramount because he didn't get his cut from sales of The Godfather games.
He argues this is a breach of an agreement that his dad, who wrote The Godfather novel, had made with the film studio in 1992. This entitled Mario Puzo to a meaty chunk of money made from any audio or visual products based on The Godfather licence.
"In material breach of the audio-visual products agreement, Paramount has failed and refused to pay the Puzo estate the sums due it in respect of the Godfather game," said the court filing, according to Reuters.
The original hand-shake came about as a result of Mario Puzo accepting a low price to sign away The Godfather rights because he was a young and relatively unknown author at the time.
Mario Puzo died in 1999, leaving his estate to his children. His book about Mafia life through the eyes of the Corleone family has since gone on to be immortalised in what IMDB ranks as the greatest film of all time.
The Godfather game was rather less well-received, scoring around the middle-mark but selling bundles nonetheless.
So strong is the pull of the licence that EA continues to talk about sequels and what you may be able to do in them, although still, frustratingly, unofficially.
EA boss John Riccitiello did recently hint that it would be a game "we'll be talking a lot about this fall".
But other than that there is nothing. Honest.