Sony to Pay $1.5M Over Fake Movie Critic

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LOS ANGELES - Sony Pictures Entertainment must pay $1.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the studio of citing a fake movie critic in ads for several films.

Moviegoers who saw the films " Vertical Limit," " A Knight' s Tale," " The Animal," " Hollow Man" or " The Patriot" during their original theater runs must file a claim to be eligible for a $5 per ticket reimbursement, lawyer Norman Blumenthal said Tuesday. He represented a group of filmgoers who sued Sony Pictures in 2001.

Any funds remaining after claims are satisfied would go to charity, he said.

Sony Pictures declined comment. The studio did not admit any liability under terms of the settlement.

After the dispute came to light, the studio temporarily suspended two executives and vowed to monitor its publicity and advertising more closely.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl entered a final judgment in the case last month, Blumenthal said.

The lawsuit, originally filed by two California moviegoers, claimed the ads fooled the plaintiffs into seeing " A Knight' s Tale."

In one ad for the action-comedy, a critic identified as " David Manning of The Ridgefield Press" was quoted calling star
Heath Ledger " this year' s hottest new star!"

In an ad for " The Animal," Manning was quoted declaring, " The producing team of ' Big Daddy' has delivered another winner!"

At the time, The Ridgefield Press, a small weekly newspaper in Connecticut, did not have a movie critic named David Manning, the lawsuit said.

Some of the movies Manning praised had already received positive reviews from real critics.

And if you haven' t figured it out already, yes Knights Tale SUCKED!

LoL ya I was reading about that earlier. I always figured sombody mustve been doing that for the god awful movies out there.

Sony - those bastards can get away with anything.

1,5 mln ? I' m sure they will laugh at it.

Afer all they are selling bugged and not that well put together consoles and still come up as No 1 :)

wow, that' s a lot of money. I remember hearing about this a few weeks ago -- what a story!

Sounds like Sony to me, the only thing they ever do right is generating hype. ps1=sucks, ps2=sucks, minidisc players=sucks, VAIO computers=sucks everything from Sony=sucks. Yet they somehow mange to convince people that their crappy hardware is worth the premium prices, Go to Hell Sony! Samsung is top dog now.