“HANNAH MONTANA” CREATORS SUE DISNEY

Hollywood’s notorious accounting practices will likely be placed under the spotlight again if a lawsuit filed Friday by two of the creators of Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana series comes to trial. Barry O’Brien and Richard Correll claim in the $5-million lawsuit that Disney has not paid them the percentage of profits due on their bank-end deals and that it has refused to allow them to audit profits from the hit series. The pair created Hannah Montana in 2005 with Michael Poryes. Poryes is not a party to the lawsuit; however, he filed a similar one in 2008. Moreover, Correll, a prominent TV director, claims in the lawsuit that after filing a complaint with the Writers Guild of America over the matter, he was terminated by Disney not only from the Hannah Montana series but was also “blackballed” from all Disney projects. Disney declined comment on the lawsuit.