Meh, they don’t really dispute much - just that they gave Oher his “fair” share. That is all Oher is asking for in his suit - terminate the conservatorship and then have the court do an accounting and determine if he actually got his fair share. Honestly, even if they did split the Blind Side money equally, that’s still pretty scummy - the story was Oher, but yet even taking the Tuohy’s lawyers statement at full value, it was split 5 ways with the Tuohy’s getting 80% and Oher 20%.
Also, unless I’m missing something, this directly contradicts what the Tuohy’s had previously been saying:
“We didn’t make any money off the movie. Well, Michael Lewis (the author of the book ‘The Blind Side’) gave us half of his share. Everybody in the family got an equal share, including Michael,” Tuohy said. “It was about $14,000, each. We were never offered money; we never asked for money. My money is well-documented; you can look up how much I sold my company for.”
Now their lawyer admits that:
In his statement, Singer said agents for Michael Lewis, author of the bestselling book that became “The Blind Side,” negotiated a deal in which the Tuohy family “received a small advance from the production company and a tiny percentage of net profits.”
Shocking, but it appears the Tuohys have been lying about this for years. They wrote a book 10+ years ago, in which they claim:
“Contrary to popular belief, the movie did not wildly enrich us. We had no participation in the profits; we only received a fee for selling our name rights to Alcon, which all in all was not a large amount. We divided it five ways.”
I always thought these movies based on real life things didn’t actually pay the people much but I have no idea what the terms were like everyone else here.
Man I have no vested interested and am not a fan of Brittany or any of the teams Oher played for, but the term Conservatorship is somehow completely triggering for me. How is it even possible that our court system allows an 18 year old to sign up for that once and live under it for decades without knowing what he’s getting into or having some regular opportunity to demonstrate competence and get out of it?
I wasn’t saying the 5 ways was the lie (although that’s pretty unfair to Oher). Previously they said “we had no participation in the profits,” now their lawyer admits they got a “tiny percentage of net profits.” So don’t see why anything they say should be trusted.
In his court petition, Oher asks for a judge to terminate the conservatorship granted to the Tuohys in August 2004, for a full accounting of the money the Tuohys earned using Oher’s name and to have the couple pay him his fair share of profits, as well as unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Singer said the family will not oppose the termination of their guardianship but “will not hesitate to defend their good names, stand up to this shakedown and defeat this offensive lawsuit.”
over the years, the Tuohys have given Mr. Oher an equal cut of every penny received from ‘The Blind Side.’ Even recently, when Mr. Oher started to threaten them about what he would do unless they paid him an eight-figure windfall, and, as part of that shakedown effort refused to cash the small profit checks from the Tuohys, they still deposited Mr. Oher’s equal share into a trust account they set up for his son."
what exactly are the royalties from a 14 year old movie? few cents a year? is this movie still popular on DVD?
2.5 % of gross (300 million) minus 0.5% given to Oher, fits the narrative of the Touhy’s lawyer (we got a tiny percent of the profits and split 5 ways) and Oher (they owe me millions).
Tuohy Jr. confirms they got 2.5%. He says that over the last 4-5 years, he’s received like 60-70 thousand. So assuming they got a lot more when the movie was big, it could easily be in the millions each.
It’s in regular rotation on TBS, etc. No clue how much that is worth. Also seems like one of those mediocre movies that parents buy as gifts since their kids like football (although not sure even olds still buy DVDs that often - my mom finally stopped doing that for us a few years ago).
