Oh, please. Nikki Finke has been around long enough to know this is the way the studios do their accounting. "Lord of the Rings" made billions, but because of accounting procedures at New Line it will never show a profit so it can't pay the actors who have merchandising deals with the studio. I know because I get the quarterly accounting statements.
Its show-biz 101, if you have a backend or net deal on a movie, you have worthless paper.
As David Mamet said, “There is no Net.”
This really came out in the Art Buchwald “Coming to America” plagiarism trial.