The creators of “Smallville,” the long-running series about Superman’s teen years, are suing Warner Bros., claiming the studio has cheated them out of millions in profits.
The suit was filed late Friday night in LA — after the producers got word that the show had renewed for another season, its tenth.
The suit by creators and producers Miles Miller and Alfred Gough claims that, because Warner Bros. makes the show and then sells the show to its own networks — the CW and the now-defunct WB before that — it never got fair-market price for the series.
The series producers have been under-paid because of what the suit calls “unfair self-dealing.”
Lawsuits like this have become common since the early 2000s, when the federal government loosened the rules that used to restrict networks from buying shows from their affiliated studios.
The producers of “Home Improvement” (Disney/ABC), “Will & Grace” (Universal/NBCV) and “The X-Files” (Fox) all sued their studios and reportedly won millions in settlements.
Complicating the lawsuit, however, is that Warner Bros owns DC Comics and the screenrights to Superman.
The series — about the years in young Clark Kent’s (Tom Welling) life before he realized he could fly and possessed other superpowers — has never been a ratings bonanza.
But its steady, loyal audience made it a staple of the young-appeal TV networks since its debut in 2001.