By Zanub Saeed
Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg, the team behind Katalyst Media, filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Motor Vehicles for breach of contract, up to $1.44 million.
Kutcher, famously known for his reality show "Punk'D" and television shows "That 70's Show" and "Two and A Half Men," planned to start a reality show based on the DMV's employees and patrons, but backed out of the deal, said The Hollywood Reporter this week.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, where Katalyst and fellow production company Soda and Pop, Inc., said they were owed the money for breaking their contract with the production companies, noted The Hollywood Reporter.
Katalyst said it was in negotiations to start the DMV half-hour reality show dating back to 2010, to air on cable network TruTV for four starting episodes and possibly six seasons. According to the suit filed, DMV said that the show was no longer in the organization's best interests.
"In a five sentence letter to Katalyst producer Jason Goldberg, [DMV deputy director Mike] Marando simply declared that DMV no longer considered the series to be in its 'best interests' and would therefore 'not be moving forward on such a project,'" said the complaint made in the lawsuit.
The show was going to be called "DMV" and was set to revolve around "the variously humorous, emotional, dramatic, moving, humanizing and entertaining situations that arise on a daily basis at DMV's more than 170 offices across the State of California," noted the file complaint via The Hollywood Reporter.
Kutcher and his company claimed the DMV's director, George Valverde, had committed, via letter dated back to June 8, 2010, said E! Online, to take part in the reality program and to begin filming episodes back in fall 2011, though the DMV announced they were no longer interested in pursuing the television venture.
