Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFT Auction DOA, Miramax Claims – Deadline

UPDATE, 1:16 p.m.: Barely a year after it all started, Miramax and Quentin Tarantino have pulled the plug on their legal face-off against Pulp Fiction NFTs

“The parties have agreed to put this matter behind them and look forward to working with each other on future projects, including possible NFTs,” the Bill Block-led studio and the Oscar-winning filmmaker said in a joint statement today . No details of the settlement between the parties were released, but Mirmax clearly hasn’t stopped Tarantino from selling NFTs – which aren’t exactly fetching the big bucks they were just a year ago

Also worth noting that Tarantino’s last film, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood was produced by Columbia Pictures and released by Sony in 2019.

In a surprise lawsuit launched last November, Miramax took its one-time golden boy to federal court in California to block Tarantino’s expressed desire to sell unique digital symbols from his acclaimed 1994 film. The one-time Weinstein-led studio claimed they owned nearly all the rights to Pulp Fiction.

A point that Tarantino and his lawyer Bryan Freedman disputed.

As recently as earlier this summer, Tarantino stated in his own legal proceedings that the NFT he put on the market did not negate any Pulp Fiction copyright held by Miramax. Noting that the NFTs were images based on the Pulp Fiction script, not the film itself, Tarantino asked the court in June to throw out Miramax’s case.

Now everything is a moot point, or as Samual L Jackson says in Pulp Fiction: :If my answers scare you, you should stop asking scary questions.:

EARLIER, JAN 22:00: As the digital clock ticks away, Quentin Tarantino and Miramax are in a legal dust-up over the Oscar winner’s plan to auction off NFTs of his Pulp Fiction script has just opened a whole new front.

A week before the first of seven bids is set to begin on the 1994 film’s script, lawyers for the Bill Block-run studio drew a clear line in the infringement sands with the platform that brought the goods to market. “Your apparent confidence in Mr. Tarantino’s position regarding his rights to Pulp Fiction is misplaced,” says Miramax outside counsel Bart H. Williams in a letter sent this afternoon to SCRT Labs CEO Guy Zyskind ( read it here ).

“Whatever limited rights Mr. Tarantino has to script publishing, they do not permit the imprinting of unique NFTs associated with Miramax’s intellectual property, and his contrary position is the subject of a pending lawsuit,” the email correspondence from the Proskauer Rose LLP partner added . “What your press release calls Mr. Tarantino’s ‘never-before-seen handwritten script’ may not yet be ‘iconic; or a ‘fan favorite,’ so it is transparent that you and Mr. Tarantino are trying to exploit Miramax’s content, intellectual property and brand.”

Then, after some further wording, things get a little medieval.

“Assuming you (like Mr. Tarantino) plan to proceed with the auction, please be aware that you do so at your own risk, including the risk that you may later owe the proceeds of any sale to Miramax along with other potential damages,” it said in Williams’ letter. “We hope that you will also inform prospective purchasers of the risks of purchasing these unauthorized NFTs, including that purchasers may have to return the NFTs to Miramax and forfeit the price they paid for such NFTs, and that purchasers may incur additional liability in the event they later sell the unauthorized NFTs (including the potential for statutory damages),” is the point.

Representatives for SCRT Labs did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment on this latest salvo in what has become a shooting war so far.

Back in mid-November, Miramax sued its former golden goose Tarantino for breach of contract, copyright infringement and more after the filmmaker announced a few weeks earlier that he intended to cash in on the non-fungible token fad. “Unchecked, Tarantino’s conduct may mislead others into believing that Miramax is involved in his venture,” stated the 22-page jury seeking complaint. “And it may also mislead others into believing they have the rights to pursue similar deals or offers, when in fact Miramax has the rights needed to develop, market and sell NFTs related to its deep film library.”

Almost immediately, Tarantino’s hard-hitting lawyer Bryan Freedman hit back.

“Quentin Tarantino’s contract is clear: he has the right to sell NFTs of his handwritten screenplay for Pulp Fiction and this ham-fisted effort to prevent him from doing so will fail,” the attorney said in a statement. After slamming the Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein-founded studio for tactically inserting Tarantino’s 1993 contract into the federal filing , Freedman made it official with a separate filing Dec. 9 against ViacomCBS’s minority-owned studio. “Now a shell of its former self and floundering under a new ownership consortium, Miramax has decided to bite the hand that fed it for so many years by leading this offensively worthless lawsuit,” exclaimed the lawyer in a move to get the whole thing thrown out.

The attorneys are on the calendar to have their first planning conference on February 24, although it may end up being virtual due to Covid-19. Meanwhile, Tarantino and the Secret Network have set 17-21. January as the dates for the Pulp Fiction “Chapter 1” auction, with more to follow quickly until January 27.

Interestingly, the auctions will not take place on the OpenSea platform, as originally proclaimed. Today’s letter makes a point of spotlighting this shift and uses it to further chastise SCRT Labs. “Presumably OpenSea did not want to aid and abet your willful copyright and other infringements,” mocks the three-page letter from attorney Williams to Zyskind.

Or as Harvey Keitel portrayed Winston Wolfe says in Pulp Fiction: “Pretty thanks with sugar on top, clean the damn car.”