French director Luc Besson has been forced to pay $140,000 (£93,330) via his production company after a Paris appeals court found executives responsible for the death of a cameraman on the set of TAXI 2.
Alain Dutartre, 41, died after he was struck by a car when a stunt went tragically wrong in 1999.
Bosses at Besson's firm EuropaCorp were initially cleared of all charges when Dutartre's family took them to trial in 2007. Instead, stuntman Remy Julienne, was held solely responsible for the botched scene and handed a suspended 18-month prison sentence.
But the Paris court of appeal reversed the ruling on Monday (29Jun09) and found EuropaCorp heads guilty of manslaughter. Julienne's punishment was reduced to six months, and his fine was slashed by $15,460 (£10,300) to just $2,810 (£1,870).
EuropaCorp producers were criticised for rejecting Julienne's offers to trial the car scene in question for a price, which the stuntman claims would have prevented the tragedy.
It's been 20 years since French filmmaker Luc Besson shook up the sci-fi genre with...
Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are partners. Skilled government agents whose job it...
For Luc Besson's latest foray into the sci-fi stratosphere, he has decided to bring the...
Like James Bond, wilfully anonymous driver Frank Martin is reborn as a new actor without...
As with the first two films in this dumb but bombastically watchable franchise, writers Luc...
Strong characters and a vivid sense of life in frontier America give this film a...
Luc Besson gleefully combines two of his favourite movie elements - fit women and wildly...
The cast and crew of 'Lucy' - actors Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman and Amr Waked,...
French filmmaker Luc Besson continues to combine family themes with intense violence (see Taken), but...
Lucy was just a regular girl living in Taipei, Taiwan before she was brutally kidnapped...
Despite a promising trailer and a great cast, this French-American comedy-thriller is a complete misfire...
Giovanni Manzoni is a gangster boss who has been placed under witness protection by Agent...
There wasn't really anywhere for the story to go after 2008's surprise hit Taken, and...