In the hit documentary “You Can See Everything,” one of the big controversies is that Elizabeth Holmes’ fiancé pushes the filmmakers for profit participation in the movie.
Multiple outlets wrote about the incident as outrageous, casting the move as inappropriate, and reporting that Evans, the film’s “villain,” winds up forgoing the fee.
But, sources tell us, there may be more to the story after the cameras stopped rolling, and that Evans has been contacting powerful Hollywood lawyers regarding profits from the film.
Page Six Hollywood has learned that Evans has been seeking legal representation, and recently contacted one of the town’s highest powered attorneys saying he expects a cut of profits.
The high-flying legal eagle did not take the gig, we hear. “He wanted to stay away from that one,” a source told us of the prominent litigator who met with Evans.
It is not clear exactly why Evans is lawyering up, but the insider added that Evans is looking for a legal representation because he is meant to get a certain percentage of the profits of the film, and that he might give them to charity.
In the hit documentary on Holmes, the convicted Theranos scammer’s fiancé (who’s been called “the film’s marquee villain” and other variations of a movie bad guy) is portrayed as brazenly trying to profit from the film in conversations with the filmmakers.
According to a NewsNation report about the movie: “In one of the film’s more jaw-dropping dramatizations, an actor portraying Evans explains he and Holmes would participate in the documentary if they received a share of the profits, which isn’t standard practice for documentaries.”
(Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s movie mixes documentary footage and reenactments.)
Reports in other outlets also clutched their pearls over Evans – the heir of a wealthy San Diego hotel family – asking for dough to be in the doc, saying that would be “typically reserved for a promotional piece commissioned by a musician, not a nonfiction film extensively interviewing a notorious subject,” according to the Guardian. “Evans is the one who violates documentary norms by asking for profit participation…”, says the report.
An LA Times report on the film says that Evans’ being paid is “an arrangement Fielder fears could compromise the project’s integrity. Evans ultimately agreed to forgo payment.”
But doc insiders tell us that’s not always the case.
“One of the big reveals of the movie is, ‘Can you believe how ridiculous it is’ [that Evans asks to be paid],” says an indie film producer whose movies are regularly the darlings of the festival circuit and have won major awards. “I’ve been involved with 25 documentaries where subjects get back end,” aka a piece of the profits. “There are docs all the time where people are paid up front.”
“People get paid every day,” the source said. “Yes, there’s an argument in this ‘journalistic purity way'” that subjects should not be paid. “This is an argument that’s been going on forever [in the documentary world] if you’re following the formalistic rules.”
But the source said, “There’s also a difference between paying [Evans and Holmes], and splitting the money if the film becomes profitable. It’s gonna make an obscene amount of money.”
Then again, “I salute the filmmakers for acting like this is just outrageous.”
(We have reached out to Evans for comment and have not heard back.)
The film on disgraced tech founder Holmes certainly has been minting cash at the box office so far, opening to $15 million in its limited release and expanding to 2,600 screens this weekend. Box-office tracking suggests it could knock off Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” as the top grossing non-fiction film ever.
It remains to be seen if any of that goes into Evans and Holmes’ pockets. Stay tuned..