Joey Ramone’s brother hits again at “baseless and flimsy” biopic lawsuit

Joey Ramone’s brother has counter-sued the widow of Johnny Ramone, calling her makes an attempt to close down a Netflix biopic “baseless and flimsy”.

In January, Johnny Ramone’s property sued Mickey Leigh over the upcoming Joey Ramone biopic entitled I Slept With Joey Ramone, starring Pete Davidson.

His widow, Linda, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan court docket on January 21, claiming that Leigh – actual identify Mitchel Hyman – “covertly developed an unapproved and unauthorized Ramones-based biopic” based mostly on his “one-sided recitation of the historical past of the Ramones”.

And now, a countersuit filed on March 15 by Leigh and his legal professionals has rejected Linda’s claims, whereas additionally claiming that she had already signed off on a biopic movie a number of years in the past.

As reported by Billboard, the legal professionals wrote: “Ms. Cummings-Ramone’s essential function is to embarrass, harass, and destroy the integrity of Mr. Hyman, create an totally false narrative about him, rewrite her function within the historical past of the Ramones, and win a recognition contest through which, in her thoughts, she takes over … the legacy of a band of which she by no means was a member and had nothing to do with creatively.”

“She is pushed by an alternate agenda, together with her personal fame and vainness, in addition to a self-serving want to impede tasks and management RPI for causes which battle together with her fiduciary duties and trigger her to keep away from any modicum of cooperation with Mr. Hyman,” they continued.

The unique lawsuit didn’t explicitly identify Netflix as a defendant within the case, however Linda Ramone’s representatives did state that the movie being referred to is predicated on Leigh’s personal memoir.

Linda and Leigh each personal equal shares within the Ramones’ mental property, and symbolize Johnny and Joey Ramone’s respective estates.

“Ms. Ramone objects to defendants’ try and create a Ramones movie with out her involvement — to not be obstinate, however fairly based mostly on defendants’ disregard for [Ramones] belongings and their conduct and remedy of Ms. Ramone and her late husband,” Linda’s attorneys wrote. “To allow defendants alone to inform the authoritative story of the Ramones could be an injustice to the band and its legacy.”

As representatives of Johnny and Joey Ramone, who respectively died of various types of most cancers in 2004 and 2001, Linda and Leigh have notably maintained a lower than beneficial authorized relationship through the years. In 2019, the pair settled a long-standing dispute over using the ‘Ramone’ identify, after Linda modified her surname to Ramone in 2014, illicitly used the Ramone identify on social media, and meant to rename her Los Angeles dwelling ‘Ramone Ranch’.

The arbitration resulted in Linda Cummings-Ramone being barred from renaming her dwelling ‘Ramone Ranch’, although she was allowed to call it ‘Johnny Ramone Ranch’ or ‘Linda Ramone Ranch’ as an alternative. Leigh was additionally barred from obstructing Linda’s makes an attempt to acquire logos for the names Johnny Ramone and Linda Ramone.

The Joey Ramone biopic was introduced to be co-written by Davidson and directed by his frequent collaborator, Jason Orley. In Netflix’s press launch on the time of the movie’s announcement, Adam Fogelson, chairman of the movie’s manufacturing firm STXfilms said: “‘I Slept with Joey Ramone’ is a superb rock anthem that can make an equally nice rock biopic, set aside by a common story of household.”