Richard Marks — Direct/Cross/Redirect

RICHARD MARKS: Good afternoon

RICHARD MARKS: Richard Ed"ard Marks.

RICHARD MARKS: I live in Hollywood.

RICHARD MARKS: I'm a product of the public school system in Los Angeles and I went to UCLA undergraduate and I'm a graduate of the UCLA School of Law.

RICHARD MARKS: I graduated in 1973, and I've been an officer of the courts since then, almost 50 years.

RICHARD MARKS: I work at my own law firm, Richard Marks and Associates.

RICHARD MARKS: It is a transactional entertainment law firm, and we represent individuals, writers, directors, actors, books, but-- authors. But mainly we represent producers who are developing a product, if you will, to be produced and then exploited on television, features, streaming, things like that.

RICHARD MARKS: What I do is make deals. They're transactions. I'm a deal guy. So my whole practice, all these decades, has been about getting to "yes." How do you make a deal? And then how do you get it documented so people sign it and then are able -- it's clear enough that it can be administered and people can know what to do after you've made the deal?

RICHARD MARKS: Well, as I said, I work with all kinds of clients, but the -- my bigger clients and the bulk of my practice is representing producers who produce -- they develop and they produce content for exploitation.

RICHARD MARKS: Yeah I've been working for a long time with ITV which is a huge British company with worldwide reach in entertainment They produce The Voice Love Island and right now I've done all the development legal work on a miniseries that's about to shoot in France and England starring Michael Douglas as Benjamin Franklin based on a novel I helped them option years ago Then scripts were written for the eight hours Then Michael Douglas was engaged the director was engaged And I do all those 8 contracts And that's ITV.

RICHARD MARKS: Another one of my big clients is Village Roadshow. They're an Australian company. They partner with Warner Brothers, and they produce movies like Matrix, Aquaman, Scooby Doo.

RICHARD MARKS: Right now I am working on a television series for them, doing the legal production, and before that it was development, but the production legal work on a reboot of the old College Bowl show, where two colleges come together with teams and answer questions, and here they're going to win scholarships. And the hosts are Peyton Manning and Eli Manning. So that's currently what I'm working on for Village Roadshow.

RICHARD MARKS: My third big client is a company called Media Rights, MRC, and they produce movies and TV shows. Recently, I've done a lot of work for them. They are finishing up a miniseries that I'm doing the legal work for for Apple, starring Billy Crudup. We just finished a miniseries for them called Terminal List with Chris Pratt; that's for Amazon. And we recently finished a miniseries, doing the legal deal making, for MRC on a show called the Shrink Next Door, which is aired at -- starring Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd.

RICHARD MARKS: And then, I can't leave out my longest client, which is the producers of Bosch, for Amazon, it's got to be nine, ten years ago when we went into Amazon, they had never produced a series, and we negotiated a deal for Michael Conley's book series and we cast Titus Welliver as Bosch. They wouldn't order a series; they would only order a pilot. And now, in the next few days, what I call the eighth season but which is the first season of the spinoff will be available and IMDb TV instead of on Amazon, but Amazon owns we're right now writing the ninth season. So I've had this long run with this one particular series.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, when you think of a series or a motion picture and you see the credits, there's hundreds of credits there. And every one of those people, you have to make a deal with them, and you have to paper it so that they sign it and you know what to pay them and what -- is there a guild involved, the union, what are their services? And what I do is all of that, soup to nuts, many times.

RICHARD MARKS: Sometimes I work with in-house counsel or other attorneys, and we split up the work. But, basically, you know, you want to produce a movie or a show. You might option a book. I do that deal. You might hire a writer. Then you might get a director, then a line producer, a UPM versus AD. Then you start hiring your cast. Then you start making location deals. Then you start renting equipment and props and getting releases for photos you might show or for people who might end up on camera.

RICHARD MARKS: And then when you're done shooting, you're making deals for merchandising and deals with distributors. In the old days, it might have been for a DVD or for merchandising a doll. And so it's really what I do is make deals. And all deals, I've been doing it for almost 50 years, but they're all the same. They have elements of time, money, credit, rights, and perks. And I have approached deals that way so that I've made myself relevant. When I started out there were three networks and big studios, and attorneys said "Well, I'm a TV lawyer.

RICHARD MARKS: I'm a feature lawyer." I just said, "I'm a transactional lawyer," and so I've been able to adapt and make deals with Netflix, Quibi, YouTube, you know, you name it, I've made deals. I recently made a deal with Hellmann's mayonnaise for an actress who is going to be an influencer for them on the web. It was a good payday for this actress, but that's the way I look at deals. I'm a dealmaker, and that's my practice.

RICHARD MARKS: I got started in the entertainment industry by being born in Hollywood. And it's our talent industry, if you will. I've always been interested in it. And when I went to UCLA, I took all the film classes there were. And when I went to UCLA law school, it was by design because, number one, I couldn't afford the big law school, so UCLA was a public school; it was virtually free.

RICHARD MARKS: I went to UCLA law school because if you want to practice entertainment law in Hollywood, you go to UCLA or USC. Those are the schools where you kind of create your contacts and your network. And at UCLA they had some of the best professors who taught entertainment law-related subjects. So I took copyright, trademark, entertainment contracts, if you will. I took everything entertainment related.

RICHARD MARKS: And that's how I kind of built the foundation for, then, my',after-law school career.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, I wanted to do entertainment transaction law, but I realized I could earn a little bit more money if I went into entertainment litigation, suing over copyrights and trademarks. And so I took the highest-paying job that I could get out of law school, and, it was in 1973, and I did IP litigation, disputes over copyrights, trademarks, disputes over rights, things like that And I was a low-level litigator doing depositions or motions, certainly not sitting at the, you know, examining witnesses, except I might be in a deposition.

RICHARD MARKS: And I did that for about - it was my first yea out of law school.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, after that, I kind of made a decision that being a litigator wasn't for me, that I wanted to make deals, that I wanted my career to be about getting to yes. And that involved a lot of, you know, conflict, sometimes, but the goal was to get to yes so that both parties could work together. Because the goal was working together and creating the TV show, not making the deal. The dealmakers had to step away so that you closed the deal, and then people could live with that deal. And so I went to a transactional law firm, and I was there a couple years and I made deals.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, this is, you know, mid 1970s, and this law firm was hot, if you will, and some of my classmates were there; that's how I got the job. I had to take a cut in pay to go here. And I'll never forget, I'm the second-chair attorney in a big conference room at Fox, and we're trying to close a deal for our young client, George Lucas, to make a film called Star Wars, a Western space movie. And Fox would not give us the budget or the salary he wanted. And this is the god's honest truth, we said, "Okay, give us the merchandising." And famously, they gave us the merchandising because they didn't think there was value there. And that's how much our business has changed. While I was at that -- my first transactional firm, we also worked for a client, his name is Sylvester Stallone. His claim to fame is that he was a character actor, but he had written a script that all the major stars wanted to play. They wanted to play the role of Rocky, and he said, "I will not sell this script unless I play Rocky." And no one was happy about that. And the deal we made was he got to play the role, but it was a very low budget and he hardly had a dressing room. He hardly had any perks. He wasn't happy about it, but we were able to make up for that in the deals for Rocky 2, 3. And that's the type of deals -- it was, at that entertainment transactional firm, we weren't representing major companies, if you will. We were representing artists, writers, directors, talent, like, you know, individuals. We weren't representing the companies I do now, like ITV or Village Roadshow.

RICHARD MARKS: After that, I made a decision that I wanted to go in-house where the full-time business was making a, you know, product and it was very tied to production, and I wanted to move away from law firms at that moment. And my first in-house job was for the Ziegler Distel Agency, which was one of the premier literary agencies in town. We represented writers and books and states of books.

RICHARD MARKS: And at that time, in late 70s, early 80s, if you wanted to hire a writer or a book or option a book, there were three places you went You went to Swifty which he's kind of famous Swifty Lazar's Oscar parties or you went to Swanee HL Swanson or you went to Ziggy and I worked for Ziggy

RICHARD MARKS: Oh, yeah, yeah. I, you know, with Ziggy, we made deals for the book The Princess Bride. We did a lot of -- we worked for William Goldman, who that was his book and his screenplay. You know, it was a fabulous experience. But that firm was bought by ICM, a much bigger agency. And then I moved to Paramount. That's where I next went. And at Paramount, I was the attorney on the series Cheers and the series Family Ties, which was the break for the young son, Michael J. Fox.

RICHARD MARKS: And then I did something because I have never said I'm just a lawyer I'm a dealmaker I get to yes And it's sort of unheard of but I moved from network television doing the deals for Cheers and Family Ties I moved to features Paramount because you get a little more money in features And I was married and I had a child and in features I was assigned to do the development and production work for a producer who's in this case Jerry Bruckheimer and also served they had an overall deal with Eddie Murphy so I did his the legal work on his films like Beverly Hills Cop Coming to America things like that And I was at Paramount about four years

RICHARD MARKS: After Paramount, I got this opportunity to head up business and legal affairs in the feature division for Jerry Weintraub's studio. Jerry was famous at the time for Karate Kid and Ocean's 11, and he represented, you know, Elvis and Frank Sinatra in music, and John Denver. But this was his motion picture company, and I was in features. We made a film called Troop Beverly Hills, which is starring Shelley Long. We made another film, The Big Blue. We acquired a film library. He was positioning himself to be a major company until he went bankrupt. And that was one of his only failures.

RICHARD MARKS: Where did you go after that? After then, Jerry Weintraub, I went to Disney, and I filled in for a year for the head of legal in features who was on maternity leave and taking a family leave. And so I headed up legal on films like Dick Tracey, Madonna was in that; Rocketeer, another live-action film. But what I really remember about my time at Disney is they were revamping the animation department, and they wanted to make a different kind of Disney animated film.

RICHARD MARKS: And part of it, in the old days, Disney animated films, the voices weren't advertised. They weren't the stars of the movie. Disney was the star or Dumbo was the star. But the voices were hardly known. And we broke that mold, and it was the first deal where we paid real money to someone to do a voice was a deal I made with Robin Williams to voice Aladdin. And it changed the whole history of Disney and feature animation. I worked on Beauty and the Beast, and it was a tremendous experience to be involved with them.

RICHARD MARKS: Yeah. I continued my in-house road, even in the world that I could see was consolidating and it was going to be more and more difficult to stay in house. After Disney, I went to a company called Media Home Entertainment, and they put up money for films. And for their investment, they got the VHS cassette rights. So Media Home Entertainment was one of the producers, investors, in the Nightmare on Elm Street series and Blue Velvet, and what they got was the right to sell video cassettes. They also manufactured and sold Jane Fonda videos or NFL videos.

RICHARD MARKS: It was a great ,16 business, except the studios realized, "Are we I crazy? Why are we letting another company sell video? We should keep that in-house." And so I was not only head of legal, but I was on the board of directors and we sold the company to Fox so that they could take in the assets and eliminate a competitor.

RICHARD MARKS: After Media Home Entertainment, I went to a company called Kushner-Locke. It was at a time in the business there were hundreds of independent producing companies because the networks couldn't produce for themselves; there were laws preventing it. And Kushner-Locke, we produced Pinocchio with Jonathan Taylor Thomas. We produced a small movie called Freeway. It was Reese Witherspoon's, one of her first roles, and it was, you know, I was there for eight years.

RICHARD MARKS: It was a good, long run, until they, as all those independent companies ultimately did -- not all, most -- they went bankrupt after eight years.

RICHARD MARKS: Now, you can see I'm still chasing the in-house world. I went to a company, Nelvana. They were a Canadian animation company, but they had this big office in LA. I headed up business legal. We manufactured, made, produced animated television series like Care Bears and merchandising, also, Babar, Big Bear, Little Bear, all sorts of animated subjects and merchandising deals and cartoons, if you will. And then that Canadian company closed the LA office and moved back to Canada. I didn't want to move back to Canada.

RICHARD MARKS: And so my last in-house situation, I went to Universal Network Television, and I did business and legal affairs on Just Shoot Me, a television series; a series starring Josh Brolin called Mister Sterling. It was kind of patterned on Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

RICHARD MARKS: And at the same time I was at Universal Network Television, I consulted with Nickelodeon features, and I helped them sort of build out their feature products. They were on the Paramount lot. I had been at Paramount for a long time, and we worked on films such as Sponge Bob the animated film. And then when that consulting ended and NBC came in and bought Universal, that, you know, ended my job at Universal, and I made the decision I would go back and be a lawyer at a law firm.

RICHARD MARKS: When I went back to the law firm, I did a lot of -you know, I worked on their clients, and I helped a financier, Robert Silverman, in effect buy the American Idol brand. I worked with Berry Gordy's company, trying to turn some of his world into theatrical plays. I worked with the Nat King Cole estate, trying to do things.

RICHARD MARKS: So it was a lot of reality. I remember I worked with J. Walter Thompson, and they were, in effect, creating advertising opportunity branding. And then the one that sticks in my mind is I helped, you know, George Foreman market things so that he made a deal to be the face of a thing called the George Foreman grill. And it was - it was a good practice.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, after the firm I just told you about is called Greenberg Traurig. It's a large international firm. I moved to a firm called The Point Media in 2006, and I was there for 14 years doing much the same work that I do now. And then in 2020, right at the start of the pandemic, I went out on my own and formed Richard Marks and Associates.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, before I got involved in the business, most deals for writers were "How much money per week, and how many weeks?"

RICHARD MARKS: When I got into the business, it was all even more complicated, but through my decades, all that is happened is it's gotten more and more complicated. Still the essential elements of time, money, credit, perks, money, whatever, but it's gotten more complicated. You had to deal with merchandising, you had to deal with sequels, you had to deal with all sorts of derivative works, video games, you name it, you know, publicity, promotion. It all expanded so that making a deal that might have been, you know, simple 30 years before, now was a major production. And, you know, lawyers became integral. You couldn't get a good deal without someone who was going to dive into the boilerplate and make sure that it was right.

RICHARD MARKS: Thank you.

RICHARD MARKS: I was asked to bring my years of experience in the entertainment industry and look at the damage that the op-ed of 2018 created in Johnny Depp's career and his life and his reputation.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, again, I view the op-ed and the fallout through almost 50 years in the business. And what I did was I read the pleadings in the case, the deposition transcripts, the articles, the pleadings. All of the paperwork in this case, which is voluminous.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: My general opinion is that the op-ed damaged Mr. Depp. Created a cancel situation, if you will, harm to his reputation and his ability to get work.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, virtually, every company I work for, they are engaging actors to advertise their products. Most of the time those products are TV shows or streaming series or feature films that all involve product spinoffs and derivatives, and sometimes they are just products and spokespeople getting together.

RICHARD MARKS: But, yes, I have experience in hiring a star to be the face of your product.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, as you can imagine, they consider reputation. This is a capitalist society and they're looking to make money. They want to add value to their investment. They want actors who have reputations that will bring eyeballs to the screen, bodies in the seats.

RICHARD MARKS: They're looking for added value, not negativity.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes. As I explained, I negotiate deals with actors to play roles in films and.

RICHARD MARKS: The actor's starring role becomes the face of the film, the product, the series. That actor is synonymous with the product. And, again, in hiring an actor or actress, you want a reputation that supports the value that you spent on creating the product.

RICHARD MARKS: You might say Pirates of the Caribbean is Johnny Depp and vice versa. That's the importance of hiring a star.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, again, on the other side of the coin, you wouldn't want to hire an actor who has negativity following them. You wouldn't want to pay to actually bring your brand down, your movie, and - so that's very important, and especially in the last five years with the #MeToo movement, you wouldn't want negativity, hiring an actor who "has been canceled."

RICHARD MARKS: Well, we're talking about legal activity, criminal record. But right now, the pinnacle of negativity in Hollywood is being accused of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, violence, and what we've seen is, almost immediately, terminations and cancellations to -- for the investors, for the people who create that product, to move away from that negativity.

RICHARD MARKS: My understanding of the #MeToo movement is that, finally, society is listening to the victim, giving the victim of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, the benefit of the doubt. And there has been a shift in our society from not doing that to now the victim gets the benefit of the doubt until there's too much doubt. And to me, that's the #MeToo movement. One person can come forward and accuse Harvey Weinstein and another person can come forward and another and another, that's the Me Too part of it. But they get the benefit of the doubt; whereas, in the past, the victim didn't have that benefit.

RICHARD MARKS: In my many decades in the business, Hollywood has changed and morphed, but never as quickly as to respond to the #MeToo movement that started in 2017.

RICHARD MARKS: When I started in the business, every contract for an actor, or someone involved in the movie, had a morals clause, that if you did certain things, you could be fired for it. They wanted to protect their brand.

RICHARD MARKS: Before the #MeToo movement, that morals clause was fading out. People with leverage, people have said, wait a second, you just can't get rid of us because you think this or that. With the #MeToo movement, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, if you will, the morals clause has come back and it is a demanded feature in every entertainment employment agreement because the studios want that verbiage. They want those rights so that they can act quickly and decisively when there is a claim.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: I did some of the production legal work on a film called All the Money in the World. It was about the life of the Gettys, J. Paul Getty. J. Paul Getty was played by Kevin Spacey. He acted in the part; he finished his role; he was paid. And then, these Me Too accusations came out. And immediately, my client, in conjunction with sorry, they made a decision to take him out of the movie and Christopher Plummer was hired. They reshot all his scenes and seamlessly cut them into the movie. If you see All the Money in the World, you won't know that Kevin Spacey was ever in it.

RICHARD MARKS: So I had that personal experience. And then coincidentally, when that happened, I was also doing work for MRC, which produces House of Cards, and a very successful series, and he was the star of it. And he was immediately cut out. And everything was redone to get rid of the notion that Hollywood would support an abuser after the #MeToo movement. And then, because I was in the mix of all of it, I also know that Kevin Spacey had completed another movie for Netflix, and unlike All the Money in the World, they couldn't reshoot it. And it sits on the shelf, a movie about Gore Vidal that was finished, but has never seen the light of day.

RICHARD MARKS: Can you repeat the question?

RICHARD MARKS: These companies, as I've said, they wanted Kevin Spacey removed because they didn't want the negativity. They want anyone removed so that they can get a return on their investment in our society so that they are not seen as being in the old generation, where women were not given the benefit of the doubt. Where victims were not given the benefit of the doubt. And a switch has been turned and, certainly, by 2017.

RICHARD MARKS: Well, I would say the bigger the company, the bigger the budgets, they're all sensitive. But, at the pinnacle of sensitivity are the family-friendly companies, like Disney. They're particularly sensitive, not in a general way, but in a very specific way.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: My understanding of how that op-ed was received -

RICHARD MARKS: As I said before, I'm a member of the Hollywood community. That op-ed, for the first time, is in a mainstream publication called The Washington Post. This is a flagship journal, if you will, of American news. We're not talking about a trade paper. We're not talking about a rag. We're talking about The Washington Post. And it is geared to Hollywood. It says, two years ago, when I was getting my divorce, Amber Heard is saying "I was the abuser" and, Hollywood, you stood up for my abuser not for me, the victim --

RICHARD MARKS: What I'm saying is Hollywood got the subject matter of the op-ed loud and clear. Amber Heard was calling out Hollywood for supporting, since 2016, supporting her abuser and she felt the wrath of Hollywood. She was calling them out to do something in the Washington Post, and on the eve of her biggest film, a big film for Hollywood, the publicity machine was in high gear. There was lots of publicity and news out there. This was the height of her fame and she used it, at that moment, to call Hollywood out.

RICHARD MARKS: 121 In my opinion, as a member of Hollywood, they heard that plea loud and clear and it also got her I 359} publicity for her movie, you know. I don't think that that -- in my perception, the people in Hollywood didn't see that as a coincidence, that date. And, so, yeah, in Hollywood, I think the IS message was received that she was sending. j 6

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: Hollywood has a history of putting up with major artists' and major stars' idiosyncratic behaviors. You know, we've always had divas, like Marilyn Monroe, who would stay in her trailer for half a day. Johnny Depp has a reputation of being Johnny Depp. And when you hire Johnny Depp, you get all of Johnny Depp, and that includes being late. And, fortunately, in Hollywood, because of the budgets and the box office, you can budget for lateness. You can have second unit. You can have other shots. You can -- you have padding in budgets. You have insurance for accidents.

RICHARD MARKS: But, Hollywood knows Mr. Depp's reputation, and, you know, I heard someone say Hollywood puts up with divas and drugs. They only do that when money's involved and big s,tars are involved and artistry is involved.

RICHARD MARKS: I would say that Johnny Depp was one of the few major actors in Hollywood who managed to keep most of his personal life personal. Kept himself shrouded, if you will, a bit. And his reputation, you know, preceded him as a major artist in Hollywood.

RICHARD MARKS: But what also marked him in this business is that he was congruent. He was likeable. You know, he was, you know, one of the guys. And it -- I never heard any complaints, you know, if you will.

RICHARD MARKS: It's devastating. It's the type of claim, the Me Too claim of sexual violence, domestic abuse, that has canceled a list of actors, Chris Noth, recently, I just read something about Frank Langella. We know newscasters, Les Moonves, head of CBS. Now, Johnny Depp is in their ranks. It's devastating.

RICHARD MARKS: That's correct.

RICHARD MARKS: I've charged near that amount, but --

RICHARD MARKS: That's correct.

RICHARD MARKS: I'd have to look at my billing. During my deposition, the attorney who deposed me asked me the same question. I said I would look it up. I did during lunch. And then she never got back to it again. I don't remember how much it was then, and I don't have the figures now.

RICHARD MARKS: I would guess - again, I'd be guessing and I don't know if you want me to guess. I have a full-time, transactional practice. This is a very small part of my practice.

RICHARD MARKS: I worked for Disney about a year.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: Yeah.

RICHARD MARKS: That's correct.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: I understand that, yes.

RICHARD MARKS: I believe he's had the endorsement deal for a while, and I think he still has it.

RICHARD MARKS: As far as I know, Dior has not dropped him.

RICHARD MARKS: As far as I know, there is no contract for Pirates 6.

RICHARD MARKS: That's my memory of the documents, there was no contract for Pirates 6.

RICHARD MARKS: I didn't see paperwork on an agreement for Pirates of the Caribbean 6.

RICHARD MARKS: Veil, as an expert, of course, I don't have a crystal ball, but as an e-pert, I think Disney will do everything possible to try to put him back in Pirates, but not under this cloud.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes.

RICHARD MARKS: I agree with the proposition that there was negative publicity before the op-ed. The op-ed was something different.

RICHARD MARKS: Again, I don't remember reading the Guardian, and I don't remember that particular incident But I'll take you at your word.

RICHARD MARKS: I think I've testified that there is, certainly, Johnny Depp behavior and negativity out there, yes. , y

RICHARD MARKS: Again, you're talking about a very specific, you know, series of five films that are in billions of dollars, and there is a line in Hollywood, as I've said, they'll put up with divas and drugs to make money, but now we've drawn a line, in Hollywood, at the domestic and sexual ! 10 abuse.

RICHARD MARKS: I know these articles exist. I know they're not in the Washington Post. I don't know what article you're referring to, who wrote it, you know, what publication it was in, but I know that those articles exist.

RICHARD MARKS: Every actor has, you know, ups and downs. Mr. Depp's career has been decades long.

RICHARD MARKS: Again, you'd have to show me the article, but I don't doubt that some commentator trying to trade on being a smartypants wrote that.

RICHARD MARKS: I don't know; Netflix has a whole festival going now, Netflix is a Joke.

RICHARD MARKS: If that's what it says, it said.

RICHARD MARKS: Are you just going to keep reading this?

RICHARD MARKS: Was that written by the second underpaid actor?

RICHARD MARKS: No, I missed that one.

RICHARD MARKS: Again -

RICHARD MARKS: Johnny Depp talks with irony and panache, and I don't particularly remember that. I have a lot of stuff in front of me.

RICHARD MARKS: I'm sure, after those articles, Johnny Depp was involved in major studio projects, yes.

RICHARD MARKS: I think, again, I haven't quoted his IMDB page to memory, but he was in an animated film called Sherlock Gnomes, I think it was released, Paramount is one of the producers, I think it was released in 2017.

RICHARD MARKS: I heard about that.

RICHARD MARKS: I heard about it, yes.

RICHARD MARKS: There were lots of stories that came out, and I'm sure that was one of them. , , l

RICHARD MARKS: Again, you'd have to show me a timeline, but I'll take your word that there were articles written in various rags or trade pub --

RICHARD MARKS: No, I'm not saying that New York Times is a rag. What I'm saying is, at the height of the #MeToo movement, we have this op-ed directed at Hollywood. And in the Hollywood I know, the rest of the stuff is background noise.

RICHARD MARKS: That's true. It made about $800 million.

RICHARD MARKS: Yeah. And any company would want to have a box office hit that made $800 million.

RICHARD MARKS: It actually started long before that, but it picked up steam to what we now call the #MeToo movement in 2017.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes, this article was in the U.K Sun, which came to prominence by publishing topless women on page 3.

RICHARD MARKS: I haven't skimmed through this, but I'll take your word for it

RICHARD MARKS: I'm saying The Sun is The Sun. And it's in the U.K And what this article is, is repeating stuff from 2016. Repeating all the stuff that you might say should be all past history after the divorce. It's one - Wootton's opinion in a newspaper that's claim to fame is page 3 women, topless and, yeah.

RICHARD MARKS: What's that.

RICHARD MARKS: As far as I know, he wanted to clear his name. That's right.

RICHARD MARKS: I believe so. Yeah.

RICHARD MARKS: As far as I know, the accusations were all old news and predated. Yeah, I mean, this is a 2018 article, and in 2020, they probably were rehashing it

RICHARD MARKS: Again, I've tried to draw a line, the line that Hollywood draws between the #MeToo movement, and starting in 2017, and the gossip and the claims back and forth. I mean, there was also press about Amber Heard being an abuser in those years. There was also the other side of the coin.

RICHARD MARKS: I don't agree that this article was not about Mr. Depp.

RICHARD MARKS: Does she have another husband who abused her?

RICHARD MARKS: The only name is this is Amber Heard telling her story that started in 2016 when she was domestically abused and ignored.

RICHARD MARKS: I'm sure there were, yes.

RICHARD MARKS: I didn't hear you.

RICHARD MARKS: Yeah.

RICHARD MARKS: When was that headline?

RICHARD MARKS: 2020. Yeah, look, Johnny Depp is a decade's-long fixture in Hollywood, and people were following something across the pond. You know, we thought we kind of got rid of the U.K in 1776, but they were still following it, absolutely.

RICHARD MARKS: I think I've said Mr. Depp finally had enough and he sued to clear his name.

RICHARD MARKS: That's my assumption, yes.

RICHARD MARKS: I wasn't in the U.K, and I'm not going to opine on that. That's not what I've been engaged to talk about.

RICHARD MARKS: Yeah, I saw that there was speculation in different publications, none quoting a Disney executive, if you will. None being definitive.

RICHARD MARKS: And, by the way, I can't see, where's this article from? I just see the headline.

RICHARD MARKS: The Daily Mail is a U.K publication?

RICHARD MARKS: Do I know what?

RICHARD MARKS: I think that the Daily Mail is, but I'm not sure.

RICHARD MARKS: Yes. I designee testified that Disney produced all

RICHARD MARKS: I read the deposition. I don't recall seeing the op-ed in what Disney produced. What I do recall is the -- that the person giving that deposition for Disney really had no contact with Jerry Bruckheimer or Sean Bailey, just was someone that Disney put up who didn't know anything, is what I took from that deposition.

RICHARD MARKS: I understand that that's what the corporate designee is supposed to be. But when I read that they are not -

RICHARD MARKS: Not in touch with the president of the company, it gives me pause.

RICHARD MARKS: I don't remember that passage in the deposition, but I can't remember. She certainly did not quote the op-ed or produce the op-ed or talk about the op-ed.

RICHARD MARKS: But I- in Hollywood, actions sometimes speak much louder than words.

RICHARD MARKS: Until Disney says it's not in development, it's in development

RICHARD MARKS: And where is this from? Some rogue website? Where is this from?

RICHARD MARKS: Okay.

RICHARD MARKS: Assuming that this is a correct copy of this random website, yeah, that's what it says. They're not quoting the head of production. It's not a statement by Disney, but that's what this woman, Rebekah Barton says.

RICHARD MARKS: There was no contract for Mr. Depp to be in Pirates 6, but he was Pirates, and there would always be that question until Pirates is produced or until Disney says otherwise.

RICHARD MARKS: I think the U.K judgment came out in November 2020.

RICHARD MARKS: If the judgment came out the 2nd, this is three days later. And what's this again? Moviemagic.com [sic]?

RICHARD MARKS: By Rebekah Barton. J 8

RICHARD MARKS: As I sit here today, I don't recall when I first read it.

RICHARD MARKS: I have a wife, two kids, a full-time job. I don't remember.

RICHARD MARKS: I --

RICHARD MARKS: What's that?

RICHARD MARKS: I think, you know, that the taint sticks and -- to both sides, and I can't think of any actresses who have prevailed and who have been canceled.

RICHARD MARKS: I haven't been asked to opine on that, but I can - I certainly will look into it I don't think that this is something -

RICHARD MARKS: Again, I assume that -

RICHARD MARKS: She thought her career would get better by bringing this out I don't know.

RICHARD MARKS: He asked a lot of questions about a lot of articles.

RICHARD MARKS: The publications that carry the most weight in Hollywood, in my opinion, after all these decades, are Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times. Those are the publications.

RICHARD MARKS: Again, I don't remember all the articles, but what I do know is that Johnny Depp had always had articles about him and that that didn't change the baseline. If you had a big project and it had a role for Johnny Depp, that didn't change the baseline.

RICHARD MARKS: My opinion about the op-ed in the Washington Post is, was it different? That was - had a different quality of headline and article.

RICHARD MARKS: Thank you.