'Ben-Hur' Remake Bombed So Hard That Its Musicians Allegedly Didn't Even Get Paid

MGM and Paramount Pictures are the subjects of a new lawsuit filed by the American Federation Of Musicians Of The United States & Canada over allegations that the studios failed to pay musicians who worked on 2016's box-office failure Ben-Hur.

The case, filed with the California Central District Court earlier this week, claims that MGM and Paramount have not distributed wages, royalties or other benefits to musicians who worked on the film.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Californian composer Marco Beltrami — who has also worked on films such as World War Z, Hellboy and this year's Logan — had authority over the hiring of "musicians, arrangers, orchestrators, conductors" and other musical staff to create and submit the film's score.

AFM alleges in its complaint that "MGM and Paramount have failed and refused either to cause BH Productions LLC or the composer to comply with the compensation provisions of the Agreement".

The complaint specifies that the alleged failure encompasses a lack of "payment of wages, contributions to pension and health benefit funds, and residual revenue contributions to the Film Musicians Secondary Markets Fund, to or on behalf of the musicians employed in the scoring of Ben-Hur".

THR further reports that the studios allegedly denied AFM's requests for a "B Form" report, a means of tracking hours worked and services provided by the film's musicians as well as documenting relevant payments and other financial information such as contributions to health and pension funds.

Ben-Hur, which starred Jack Huston in the title role and featured an international cast including Morgan Freeman, Toby Kebbell, Nazanin Boniadi, Rodrigo Santoro and more, was released in August last year. It took $US94.1 million (about $70.6 million) at the global box office on a $US100 million budget.