A federal judge has narrowed the scope of a lawsuit from Terrifier actress Catherine Corcoran while keeping her core breach of contract claim for one percent of profits from the franchise alive.
Corcoran, who plays Dawn in the 2016 film as one of Art the Clown’s first onscreen victims, reached a backend deal for 1 percent of profits from “Terrifier.” The legal fight centers on what that word covers. Corcoran has argued that it encompasses the entire franchise, including merchandise, streaming, and any related intellectual property. Director Damien Leone and his production company Dark Age Cinema have maintained it only applies to the original movie.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge André Birotte found that the case advances issues of contract interpretation that can’t be dismissed at this stage of the case. That means the question of whether Corcoran is owed a cut of Terrifier 2‘s $15 million haul and Terrifier 3‘s $90 million box office take will be decided later.
“There is sufficient ambiguity around the contract terms” to reject the bid to dismiss the case, Birotte wrote.
Among Corcoran’s central arguments on this issue: She began receiving payments in 2022, more than seven years after the deal was reached, indicating that Dark Age believed she was owed money beyond the two-year term stated in the contract. It could suggest that both sides treated the agreement as covering more than the 2016 movie.
“The Court’s ruling confirms that the core of Ms. Corcoran’s case remains intact and is plausibly pled,” said Devin McRae, a lawyer for the actress, in a statement. “The claims which concern Ms. Corcoran’s contractual rights to 1% of the Terrifier franchise’s profits are now set and will proceed into discovery.”
But in a loss for Corcoran, the court dismissed her claim alleging a violation of California’s revenge porn statute over a nude scene in which Dark Age didn’t obtain her written consent as required by SAG-AFTRA. She’s argued the production didn’t have approval to exploit images of the scene, a blood-drenched kill in which Art the Clown bisects her.
Birotte concluded Corcoran shouldn’t have expected the material to remain private since she was shooting a movie. “Her voluntary presence on a public film set for over ten hours invalidates her position that Defendants should have known she reasonably expected privacy,” he wrote.
“We appreciate the Court’s careful review of the pleadings, which led to the dismissal of the vast majority of the plaintiff’s meritless claims,” said Larry Zerner, a lawyer for Leone, in a statement. “Damien Leone and Phil Falcone conducted themselves professionally throughout the production of Terrifier, and the plaintiff’s attempt to transform her role as an actor into a claim under California’s revenge-porn statute was untenable from the start.”
McRae said that the court “merely concluded that certain of the claims required additional factual specificity under the federal pleading standards and granted us leave to amend to add those facts – which we intend to do shortly and look forward to presenting the full factual record as the case moves forward.”
The lawsuit detailed allegedly grueling working conditions. To mitigate the pooling of blood in her head while suspended by her ankles, Corcoran shot the scene in 40-second increments across 10 hours, with a platform placed underneath her at some points so she could lay horizontally.
In the decision, the court also dismissed claims for promissory fraud and unfair competition, among others. Corcoran will have the chance to amend her allegations.