The Great Hollywood Refund

The Wire : Radar Online: "Do you remember going to a theater to see A Knight’s Tale, like, four years ago? How about The Animal starring Rob Schneider? If you can locate the yellowing ticket stubs in your wallet close to half a decade later, you’re in luck: Sony’s giving you your money back. As reported at the time, marketing execs at Sony had invented a film critic (David Manning of the Ridgefield Press) and used his fake blurbs in movie advertisements for five films, including The Animal and A Knight’s Tale. After the scam was exposed, lawyers quickly jumped into the thick of things and filed a class action suit which claimed that poor, innocent people had been duped by Manning (and his over-the-top one-liners) into seeing the movie. (We’d argue that if your own mother can convince you to see a Rob Schneider movie — much less someone you don’t know — you’ve got problems.) Today, a judge in California signed off on an agreement that will have Sony Pictures Entertainment pay $1.5 million to settle the class-action lawsuit, an amount that will be divvied up so that anyone who purchased a ticket to one of the movies will receive $5. All you’ll have to do is fill out some forms and submit some proof, and your claim will be processed. As to whether you want to go on the legal record as having paid for a ticket to A Knight’s Tale is another matter altogether."