The wheels of progress can spin quite slowly in Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry, but they basically grind to a halt whenever lawsuits are involved. Former action star Chuck Norris knows about that lengthy process all too well, as he and his company Top Kick Productions filed a lawsuit back in 2018 against CBS and Sony Pictures over Walker, Texas Ranger profits and an alleged breach of contract, and it's only now in 2023 that the case has been concluded, if perhaps without a clear resolution.
The initial lawsuit, filed back in February 2018, sought a $30 million payday for Top Kick Productions, which alleged that CBS and Sony breached an agreed-upon contract clause that would have granted the company and Norris 23% of the profits earned from Walker, Texas Ranger being exploited in any way, from streaming deals to other forms of home entertainment, etc. The case went into arbitration in 2019, and Sony was dropped as a defendant in 2022, but not much has come out of it since then, at least until now.
On Monday, July 24, the Los Angeles Superior Court judge overseeing things dismissed the case, with both sides agreeing to resolve the suit via an out-of-court settlement. According to THR, details about the settlement remain undisclosed.
How Chuck Norris Felt About Jared Padalecki Rebooting Walker Texas Ranger
So while it's unclear exactly what happened that convinced both sides to meet somewhere in the middle to squash the lawsuit after more than five years, Audacy reported that Chuck Norris' attorney filed the paperwork with Judge Kevin C. Brazile on Friday, July 21, that featured a request for the case to be "dismissed with prejudice," barring them from making another attempt at the same suit.
Chuck Norris and Top Kick's complaints alleged that CBS distributed and marketed the show internationally via means that skirted around having to pay the actor and producer his share of the profits. More specifically, it's claimed that CBS pivoted away from traditional routes of promoting Walker, Texas Ranger to networks for syndication and for DVD releases, and instead put more effort into getting the show's 200+ episodes onto streaming and SVOD services that the company owned, among others. It was stated that Norris hadn't received any compensation from SVOD revenue going back to 2004, and that Top Kick was denied access to Sony's financial statements.
At the time, Top Kick's lawsuit claimed that Walker, Texas Ranger was responsible for generating more than $692 million in revenue, so it's understandable why anyone would fight to get any part of it that was justly owed. For Norris to back down and agree to a settlment, CBS must have put up a very attractive offer to go along with the basic idea of ending the case in general. But until more details are publicly revealed, we'll have to remain in the dark.
In the time since Chuck Norris’ lawsuit against CBS was first filed, the network went from being a Viacom company to a ViacomCBS company to (now) a Paramount Global org. As well, The CW brought to life its reboot Walker, with Supernatural vet Jared Padalecki in the role that Norris made famous, while also ordering up the Walker: Independence spinoff. The latter suffered a cancellation, however, after The CW was bought out by Nexstar Media, which eliminated most of the original series that were airing at the time, with Padalecki’s series managing to survive for a fourth season renewal.
