The Nun Star Is Suing Warner Bros

The star who portrays the demonic Nun is suing Warner Bros. over merchandising and profits from The Conjuring Universe.

By Kofi Outlaw

An actor from The Nun – the horror film spinoff within The Conjuring Universe franchise – is suing Warner Bros. Pictures for "obscuring" the profits that the film has generated in merchandising. Bonnie Aarons is the actress who has played the titular demonic Nun, Valak, ever since the character's first appearance in The Conjuring 2, back in 2016, as well as in The Nun spinoff film in 2018, and its sequel film this year. 

Valak has become an iconic part of the horror genre – right up there with the Annabelle doll, another demonic character from The Conjuring, which has sparked an entire trilogy of spinoff films. However, the complaint filed by Bonnie Aarons alleges that Warner Bros., its subsidiary New Line Cinema, and Scope Productions failed to honor her contract for The Nun (2018), by not paying her a fair "share of Warner Bros' gross receipts from merchandise exploiting Ms Aarons' likeness." 

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Aarons was given just $71.5 thousand for the first Nun movie, with a $175K bonus that came from the film's box office performance ($365.6 million on a $22 million budget). Her legal claim states that she's owed "pro-rata share of 5% of 50% of the gross receipts" from the licensing and merchandising rights to The Nun, but that "Instead of accounting and paying in a transparent fashion, Warner Bros. obscures and hides the true amount of Ms. Aarons' rightful share of merchandising revenues, all while continuing to exploit her." The suit claims that Aarons got statements and graphs from Warner Bros. that supposedly accounted for her profits (or lack thereof); however, Aarons' claim counters that those figures were "inconsistent with the extensive merchandising activities" around The Nun, and that a spreadsheet from the studio "contained line items corresponding to only a fraction of the known licenses," that Aarons is entitled to profit from. 

It will be up to the legal system to sort out where the truth lies, but the timing of this suit is notable. Hollywood is currently tearing itself apart with the Actors and Writers strikes, as creatives are uniting and moving to force executives and studios to pay what they allege are fairer shares of profits based on the changing nature of the market, and how content is produced and consumed. Bonnie Aarons' suit is more straightforward than that, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out – and what it could mean for other character actors in a similar situation. 

Related:

The Nun II will be in theaters on September 8th. 

via: THR

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