Night Has Fallen will be the fourth outing in the action franchise, but has a lawsuit by star Gerard Butler paused production? Occasionally in Hollywood, there will be two movies that come along with almost identical premises. 1997 saw two competing volcano movies battle it out, with the fittingly titled Volcano and Dante's Peak. One of the most recent examples of this phenomenon happened in 2013 when White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen both saw terrorists seizing the White House and an unlikely hero out to save the day. Olympus Has Fallen was released first and won that race, while White House Down was a box-office dud.
Olympus Has Fallen also harkened back to the R-rated blockbusters of the '80s and '90s, with Angel Has Fallen found Banning framed for an assassination attempt. The Has Fallen movies have proved oddly robust at the box office, and another sequel dubbed Night Has Fallen was announced in 2020.
Plot details and a release date have yet to be confirmed for Night Has Fallen, however. What's interesting to note is that in the past, there's been a three-year gap between outings, with London Has Fallen released in 2016 and Angel... landing in 2019. It was assumed there would be a similiar gap for the fourth movie Night Has Fallen also, but not only did the sequel not arrive in 2022, it has yet to start filming. This might be traced back to a lawsuit Gerard Butler launched against franchise producers Nu Image and Millennium Film in mid-2021, claiming he's owed over $10 million in profits from 2013's Olympus Has Fallen.
The suit (via Deadline) claimed that an independent audit over the movie's grosses revealed the producers “understated their own receipts and profits by over $11 million" and that Butler hadn't received payments on Olympus Has Fallen's profits. The suit also stated that "Producers embarked on a scheme designed to grossly misrepresent the finances of the Film to Butler so that Butler would believe that no such payments were due.” Nu Image soon responded that they had been open and honest with the actor and his representatives about Olympus Has Fallen's grosses and "... we are very disappointed that Mr. Butler has now decided to act in this manner.”
Given the nature of the suit, it seems only natural that both Butler and the producers would hit pause on more Has Fallen movies until it has been resolved. What is also interesting to note is that in November 2021 it was confirmed that Millennium had a Has Fallen TV series in development, meaning plans to continue the franchise with or without Butler might be in the works. The lawsuit has likely put development of Night Has Fallen in a precarious position, so time will tell if Butler's Banning returns to the big screen or if the franchise's future is on television.
