DVD Talk Forum - Bad Soprano News: Gandolfini wants out.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/06...ontract+.shtml
No Tony you can never get out, doesn't he know that?

star wants to rub out his contract

By Michael Fleming, Reuters, 3/8/2003

EW YORK -- James Gandolfini is trying to put a hit out on his employment contract with HBO.

Gandolfini, who plays the mob boss Tony Soprano on the network's ''The Sopranos,'' filed suit Thursday in California Superior Court seeking to be released from an obligation to return for the next season of HBO's mob drama.

HBO officials said the move was a ploy to get more money.

The lawsuit alleges that Gandolfini had not been notified within 10 days after HBO agreed to pay series creator David Chase $20 million for the show's fifth season. Episodes for the season should begin airing in early 2004.) Gandolfini has asserted that the lack of notification amounts to a violation of his contract.

''Our legal position is that there is no obligation for James Gandolfini to perform services for the coming season,'' said a Gandolfini lawyer, Martin Singer, who declined to say definitively that Gandolfini wouldn't return as the ''Sopranos'' mob patriarch. ''There have been negotiations going on for our client to potentially return,'' Singer said. ''They haven't reached an agreement, and we have until March 24 to evaluate what to do. That is the day they've requested for him to come back to work.''

The legal action took HBO executives by surprise, since they had been planning to sweeten Gandolfini's deal for the upcoming season. ''This is nothing more than a further renegotiation tactic by an actor with a binding contract,'' an HBO official said.

The timing of the suit suggests an effort to get Gandolfini's salary in line with some of his broadcast-network peers. Gandolfini gets $400,000 an episode, a figure comparable to the likes of ''Frasier'' costars Jane Leeves and Peri Gilpin, as well as ''West Wing'' star Martin Sheen, who pulls down around $425,000 an episode.

But those salaries are well below the $800,000 paid Ray Romano for ''Everybody Loves Raymond,'' the $1 million an episode for each ''Friends'' star , or the $1.6 million Kelsey Grammer gets for each episode of ''Frasier.''

Those stars have renegotiated their contracts as their shows have succeeded, as Gandolfini did in September 2000, when he signed a $10 million deal for two seasons.