‘Obsession’ executive producer sues for not being paid fairly
“Obsession,” the indie horror movie written and directed by Curry Barker, has proved to be one of this year’s most successful films. Made for a reported budget of about $750,000, it has earned more than $500 million at the global box office since Focus Features released it in May — the biggest hit in the distributor’s history, according to a new lawsuit.
But one of its producers, Leonora Ann Darby, is claiming she hasn’t received her share of the profit.
Darby, who rose to become one of three producers at Tea Shop Productions, the U.K. company behind the movie, sued Tea Shop, its Delaware affiliate The Tea Shop & Film Company, and co-founders James Harris and Mark Lane in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The 135-page complaint lays out 10 causes of action — among them, breach of contract, retaliation for wage complaints, whistleblower retaliation and unfair competition — and describes a seven-year pattern of “unequal treatment and broken compensation promises.” Darby has demanded a jury trial.
Harris and Lane allegedly treated Darby “as their subordinate, including in a highly demeaning and gendered manner,” and continually refused to compensate her properly, “culminating in ruthlessly cutting Darby out of the overall net profits” for “Obsession,” the lawsuit says.
“Ms. Darby has brought serious and substantial claims, supported by a detailed factual record,” Darby’s lawyer Thomas K. Richards of the Beverly Hills firm Singh, Singh & Trauben, said in a statement. “She is confident in her case and intends to pursue it fully.”
Tea Shop has already rejected the core of her claim. In an Aug. 13 letter attached to the complaint as an exhibit, the company’s lawyer wrote that Darby “was an employee and, subsequently, a consultant” who has never been a member, shareholder or owner of Tea Shop, and therefore has no right to inspect the company’s financial records. The parties’ written agreement, the letter says, does not entitle her to profit participation or collection-account status on “Obsession” or on any other film not previously identified in writing, and she “has been compensated in accordance with the parties’ agreement.” Tea Shop Productions did not respond to a request for comment.
Darby is credited on screen as an executive producer of “Obsession,” rather than as a producer — a decision she says the company made despite Lane’s absence from the production in 2025 and limited involvement with the film. She claims she functioned as a lead producer under Tea Shop’s own internal definition, a distinction at the center of the case, because the profit deal she is suing over applies only to films she lead-produced.
The complaint alleges that she stepped in at a point when the edit had been taken away from Barker and handed to a new editor, leaving the movie “mired in an edit that was not working.” She “provided fundamental and critical creative and structural notes that changed the course of the film,” “advocated heavily” for the edit to be returned to Barker, and recommended the reshoots that followed, according to the suit. She then took on the post-production, credits, clearance and delivery work that got the film finished in time for its Toronto International Film Festival premiere, where Focus bought it for about $16.2 million — well above the $14 million to $15 million that trades were reporting during negotiations.
Once the value of the movie became apparent, the lawsuit alleges, she was iced out. She wasn’t invited to the Los Angeles premiere and was “deliberately” cut out of major trade articles and interviews, the suit says, including a May profile of Harris and Lane that didn’t name her. Her name was added to that piece in August, after she complained.
Darby first started working at the company in 2019, as a development and production executive. In this role, the lawsuit said, she was responsible for originating and developing projects, attaching filmmakers, assembling financing and producing films from preproduction through delivery. She originated and produced movies including “A Banquet,” “Tornado” and “The Surfer,” which stars Nicolas Cage.
In 2024, she and Tea Shop allegedly reached an agreement raising her salary to 100,000 pounds and entitling her to a third of the net profits Tea Shop itself receives on films she lead-produced, “together with direct participation in the applicable collection account management agreements” — the deals that govern how money from a film is divided among its participants.
Tea Shop has allegedly honored that arrangement on other films. On “Obsession,” the complaint says, Darby was paid $300,000 out of the film’s initial minimum guarantee after Tea Shop directed her company, Runt Productions, to invoice for “Services: Obsession.” That payment, the suit argues, was fixed compensation for her producing services — not a settlement, release or buyout, with no writing calling it full and final.
In addition to her share of Tea Shop’s profits on “Obsession,” Darby is seeking a full accounting for several projects as well as unpaid wages, expenses and relief for retaliation.
