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He's accusing Penn of trying to extort $10 million from him in a dispute over whether he would star in a proposed movie titled 'Why Men Shouldn't Marry'.
Bing, you will recall, is the chap who allegedly fathered a child, denied it was his, claimed he and the mother were not in an exclusive relationship, demanded a paternity test, then offered a relatively miniscule child support in relation to his wealth. Penn recently visited Iraq for three days, declared it free of weapons of mass destruction, then dissed his country.
According to the lawsuit, Penn appeared to have lost interest in the project but still tried through various means to force Bing to pay.
If the money wasn't paid, the lawsuit indicates, Penn would publicly embarrass Bing by saying a political disagreement between the two had kept him from making the movie.
'Penn's representatives menacingly warned Bing that Penn could not be controlled, and that he was crazy and irrational', the lawsuit stated.
A message left Tuesday for Penn's publicist wasn't immediately returned.
According to the lawsuit, Bing and his company, Shangri-La Entertainment, invested millions of dollars to make the film. Among the efforts Bing made, according to the action, was contracting with Woody Allen to appear in the film and provide script notes for it in exchange for Penn's agreement to drop a demand for script approval before he would commit to the project.
'However, Penn reneged on his promise to waive script approval without reservation, and then insisted that he and Shangri-La had entered into a 'pay or play' contract which Penn wrongly contends requires Shangri-La to pay Penn $10 million whether or not Penn appears in the motion picture', the lawsuit states.
Bing seeks $15 million in general and special damages along with unspecified exemplary and compensatory damages, as well as a court ruling that Penn does not have a 'pay or play' contract for the film.
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