Things have not been all quiet on the Bones front on Fox over the past few months. A behind-the-scenes legal battle over millions of dollars between key members of the show’s team and the network wasn’t exactly pretty to begin with, but the fight is beginning to get even more ugly. The executive producers and stars of Bones who filed lawsuits against Fox are opposing the network’s attempt to move the lawsuit to arbitration, so it looks like it won’t be going away anytime soon.
The trouble first started in late November 2015 when Bones executive producer Barry Josephson sued Twentieth Century Fox Television, alleging that profits and revenue were being kept from him and other participants. Shortly thereafter, Bones stars Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz as well as co-executive producer Kathleen Reichs brought a similar lawsuit claiming that they had been cheated out of profits that they were contractually owed for years.
Fox responded to the very public accusations by pushing for arbitration as a way for the suits to be settled outside of the courts and away from public eyes. Considering that the show and the studio have gotten an awful lot of bad press from the legal troubles, Fox’s push for arbitration came as no huge surprise. According to a report from Deadline, Fox also wanted all proceedings to be stayed until petitions can be heard on March 2 and March 14.
The push for arbitration certainly did not result in the lawsuits fading from public awareness, thanks to the responses from the executive producers and the stars. Their opposition is not without basis, and they claim that the allegations being used to support arbitration are centered on Fox petitioning against the wrong conditions in an attempt to move dealings out of the courts as soon as possible. The latest dealings look like they will come down to splitting hairs, and the one thing that we can be sure of is that Bones won’t be getting a lot of good non-episodic press as the legal troubles escalate.
Of course, there’s not much of a future left for Bones on Fox even without the lawsuits. The series was initially not even given a date for its midseason return after Season 11 failed to deliver particularly impressive ratings, and Fox CEO Dana Walden has spoken out and said that the show will be brought to an end before Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz’s contracts expire at the end of Season 12.
Luckily for fans who have been bummed out that the only new Bones news that has been coming out lately has been about the legal troubles, the show will be returning to the airwaves for the rest of Season 11 on April 14. TO see when everything else is premiering in the next few months, check out our midseason TV schedule.
