Sorcerer (film) - Court Case

Court Case

In April 2012, it was reported that Friedkin was suing Paramount and Universal over the domestic rights of Sorcerer, and for a share of the movie's profits. In an interview in July 2012, Friedkin said,

"Sorcerer is now in the Ninth District Court of Appeals in California. The judge who's caught the case has ordered a settlement conference to be completed by November 26. And if there's no settlement, then he has set a trial date for March of 2013. So we're trying to settle it. And to me, settlement only involves getting the film out on DVD and Blu-ray and loaning it to all the film societies and universities that want to run it. I'm not looking for money from this, and I’ve said that publicly... I'm suing the bastards, and I hope they read this. I'm trying to, among other things, strike a blow for other films that find themselves in this situation. I happen to have the money, and I don't give a fuck about them, so that's why I'm doing it. If I respected them, I wouldn’t do this. I reached out to the head of Universal, and he said, "I'll get right back to you." A week later he kicked me off to some guy who's the head of home video. He said, "What?! I don't believe this! I'll look into this right away!" and I’ve never heard back from him. So I had no choice but to sue them. I could lose. They haven't settled yet. There's always something that the guilty can hang their hat on in a lawsuit. They've got high-priced lawyers, I'm sure, looking for some little hook where they can get away with this and destroy the afterlife of a film I made more than 40 years ago.

According to Friedkin, both studios have claimed that they don't own the film and don't know who does:

What both studios did when they made it, they put it into ownership by an offshore company. It was a company called CIC, Cinema International Corporation, which was only licensed to release films overseas, not in the U.S. That company is out of business. They folded it and they now each have their own distribution, Paramount and Universal. That was like a tax-dodge thing, CIC. And now that's gone, and I think they have a bookkeeping problem about admitting where the hell it is. A lot of films got caught up in this.