Charter Spectrum has filed a lawsuit accusing Lionsgate of reneging on an agreement to deliver a third season of the “Manhunt” anthology series that was connected to the cable operators carriage of the Pop TV channel.

The suit, filed late Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, underscores the Byzantine nature of dealmaking between media giants these days, and it demonstrates the desperate measures that studios have taken to keep low-profile cable channels on the air. At the time of the events in quesiton, Lionsgate jointly owned Pop TV with CBS. But Lionsgate’s motivation changed after it sold its stake in Pop TV to CBS in 2019, according to the suit.

A Lionsgate spokesman said the company does not comment on litigation.

In 2018, Charter and Lionsgate came to a $20 million agreement that kept Pop TV on Charter’s cable systems for three years — but only if Lionsgate agreeed to produce two more seasons of “Manhunt” for Charter to help boost the Spectrum Originals menu of shows. (The first season of “Manhunt,” which revolved around the hunt for the Unabomber, aired on Discovery Channel in 2017.)

Charter was to serve as a co-producer on seasons 2 and 3 of “Manhunt” in a deal that was worked out as a means of paying Charter back for the $20 million it shelled out in license fees for Pop TV.

The suit maintains that the economics of the series deal were so bad for Lionsgate that the studio had every financial incentive to try to adjust the contract. The companies tried briefly to find an alternative to Lionsgate delivering Season 3 of “Manhunt” but never came to an agreement on a different show. The sides were already wrangling over $10 million that Charter maintained it was owed under the 2018 Pop TV carriage deal. After Charter learned from press reports in October 2022 that Lionsgate was producing a new series with “Manhunt” in the title for Apple TV+, the cable operator decided to file suit.

“Spectrum Originals insisted on including provisions in the Manhunt Agreement to ensure that it would receive the $20 million ‘benefit of the bargain’ reflected in the Agreement,” the complaint states. “First, the parties expressly acknowledged that the Pop Affiliation Agreement was ‘an element’ of the Manhunt Agreement. Second, the parties included a so-called ‘Liquidated Damages’ provision stating that Spectrum Originals would receive $20 million in damages if Lionsgate materially breached its obligations with respect to both of Seasons 2 and 3 of Manhunt, and $10 million in damages if Lionsgate materially breached its obligations with respect to Season 3 alone.”

Charter’s filing goes into great detail on the economics of the production agreement on “Manhunt.” Lionsgate delivered “Manhunt: Deadly Games,” which revolved around the search for the culprit in the 1996 Olympics bombing case in Atlanta, to Charter in 2020. The series was a success for Charter but a financial drain for Lionsgate, which was on the hook to cover $30 million of the show’s $40 million target budget while Charter retained a 50% ownership stake in those seasons.

But even as Charter acknowledges the lopsided deal terms, the company insists it’s owed $10 million per the terms of the 2018 agreement, as Lionsgate never delivered the additional season of “Manhunt.” The Apple TV+ series, which does not yet have a premiere date, is described by the streamer as telling the story of the aftermath of the Abraham Lincoln assassination, which could be a departure from the ripped-from-the-headlines focus of the show’s previous two seasons.

“Instead of fulfilling its contractual obligations to deliver a Season 3 of Manhunt to Spectrum Originals, Lionsgate brazenly went behind Spectrum’s back and started working with Apple Studios on a ‘new’ show with the identical concept—it will chronicle the search for John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin — and with the identical title, ‘Manhunt.’ The Lionsgate/Apple ‘Manhunt’ show is scheduled to premiere on Apple TV later this year. Lionsgate never pitched this idea to Spectrum Originals for use in Season 3 of its Manhunt show. Clearly, Lionsgate made a calculated decision to produce and profit from this identical series with Apple now, and deal with the consequences of breaching the Spectrum Originals agreement later.”

(Pictured: “Manhunt: Deadly Games”)

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