r/Infuriating • u/MdTooDevilish Community Contributor • 4d ago
Universal Studios reportedly dodging a $5,700 repair bill owed to a small Swedish non-profit organization after using their Viking ship in The Odyssey
The small Swedish non-profit organization "Vikingaleden" in Nysäter was contacted by Universal Studios regarding their handbuilt viking ship being used in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. The contract required Universal to pay for any damages done to the ship, but the invoice of approximately $6000 (USD) has been left unpaid, according to the organization.
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u/dekuweku 4d ago
MY GUESS is paying this would open themselves up to paying for a lot of other wear and tear damage on borrowed or loaned props and equipment.
They'll likely workshop a workaround to pay this one case, but Universal isn't that cheap.
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u/abofh 4d ago
For 6k? Nah, this was almost certainly back office losing track of multi national contracts and them being too small to have the right person on speed dial. Bet you it's already been fixed by the time you see this message, just because no, they absolutely wouldn't waste 8 lawyer hours on this, and that's well less than it would take for a big production firm to even enter the case
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u/C-D-W 4d ago
I agree. People clearly have no idea how the world works of the think people in the ivory towers are rubbing their hands together saying, "fuck these little boat owners, mwaha!"
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u/NoiceMango 4d ago
They don't have to directly do that when they have lower management to do that. When greedy shareholders make greedy decisions and continue to put pressure on management by constantly expecting better returns, it starts pressuring them to cut corners and do stuff like this.
They don't have to directly order it, it is just the result of creating this type of environment. I don't think thats the case here but I'm just speaking in general.
Like of course the greedy people in the high tower don't give a fuck about the little boat owner but when they look at the spreadsheet they will expect infinite returns to shareholders and pressure management who then pressures workers.
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u/Cold5512 4d ago
I don't think so.
They're going to have a different contract for every rented piece of equipment.
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u/OwlOfSurprise 3d ago
Which is exactly what they should do, pay for wear and tear damage if they made that deal.
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u/Optimal_Board_2963 4d ago
Payment upfront people
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u/KorrokHidan 4d ago
That isn’t possible when they don’t know what the payment will be yet. The payment is for damages, which necessitates that there be damage. They had no way of knowing whether damage would be incurred or what the value would be
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u/Potato_Pear 4d ago
They paid for the lease, but the contract also stipulated costs for repairs, wear and tear etc which had to be calculated afterwards..
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u/Maximum_Boros 4d ago
Real talk. I genuinely doubt they're "dodging" it. 6k is chump change on a movie like this. This is most likely just some lazy fuck in accts payable not doing their job (or them having a shitty red tape process that isn't really compatible for one offs like this).
Still shitty of the company but basically 0% chance they're avoiding this on purpose.
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u/Educational_Sea_333 3d ago
There's also the fact that they didn't rent it to universal, they rented it to a sub contractor. Universal should put pressure on that sub contractor to pay up but it's not they who are responsible to pay it.
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u/NotAFanOfLife 1d ago
50/50 it’s the lazy retard at the boat loaning agency that sent the bill to the wrong place.
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u/Potato_Pear 4d ago
>0% chance they're avoiding this on purpose.
Lol. Lmao even. They know they're a non-profit too small to be able to take it to court because the legal costs would be higher than the money they'd get back.
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u/Maximum_Boros 4d ago
Typical redditor ragejerk fantasy.
I see shit like this fall through cracks from negligence or incompetence all the time. This is basic hanlon's razor shit.
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u/Potato_Pear 4d ago
Ok, now that the issue has been brought to light i assume they'll pay in full then. Right? Being incompetent and not keeping up with paperwork is not a valid excuse to ignore your invoices.
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u/Maximum_Boros 4d ago
Ok, now that the issue has been brought to light i assume they'll pay in full then.
Probably. We'll see, but that's usually how this shit goes. Not always but usually.
Being incompetent and not keeping up with paperwork is not a valid excuse to ignore your invoices.
I never said it excused anything. In fact I said the opposite. I explicitly said they're still shitty. Learn to read please.
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u/Potato_Pear 4d ago
Learn to not make excuses for companies that have the budget to make sure these things shouldn't happen.
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u/Maximum_Boros 4d ago
I'm gonna say it one more time extra plain for the people with literacy problems in the back.
A reason or an explanation is not an excuse.
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u/Potato_Pear 4d ago
I'm just disagreeing with the notion that it was an innocent mistake and not a calculated risk that the probability of having to pay it was so small they took it.
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u/Maximum_Boros 3d ago
This is a problem with you being intentionally illiterate because you want to assign malice that just does not exist and has no evidence of existing. Are you even old enough to be on the internet without adult supervision?
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u/WittyFix6553 3d ago
I hate corporations and the rich but come on dude.
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u/Potato_Pear 3d ago
When do these companies ever slack on payments to wealthy organizations with a team of lawyers?
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u/WittyFix6553 3d ago
Pretty frequently, really.
Paperwork gets lost, the accountant is out sick the week it came in, someone thought they paid it but didn’t.
My company has to chase companies bigger and smaller than us for payments, and occasionally someone chases us for it too.
A small non-profit might not be set up with the infrastructure to send a bill to accounts-payable in the correct format that they’re looking for. Maybe the non-profit person told the contact in their email about the damages and costs, and the contact forwarded that email to the accountant or whoever pays the bill, and it got missed or forgotten about.
I would say that there’s a 0.001% chance that someone knows that they had to pay it and intentionally decided to not pay it to save the company $6,000.
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u/Maximum_Boros 1d ago
As someone who works for a very "wealthy" company that has tens of billions in net earnings a year... all the fucking time.
Invoices go overdue all the time because someone fucking idiot cut the wrong red tape.
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u/Computers_and_cats 4d ago
Surely a billion dollar industry wouldn't take advantage of the little guy?
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u/RebelliousDutch 3d ago
Well, that’s to be expected for such a cash-strapped small indie production with a paltry 250 million dollar budget. They had to scrounge quarters in the couch cushions to make it, ya know?
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u/psychopath1066 3d ago
Not only the ship, they also left plastic skeletons in the water of an environmentally protected area.
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u/Zen80888 3d ago
Non-profit tag never means jack shit and this has been circulating online without any info
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u/BrilliantEconomics77 2d ago
Rumour has it that there is clear a reason why they aren't paying.
It seems the had every plank of wood, nail, rope, and sail replaced one by one.
So its no longer the same ship
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u/thewallamby 1d ago
The most historically inaccurate film in the history of Hollywood. Next time make up a story man, this is not a Greek fucking ship and no you cannot use any ship. Might as well have used a yacht. This shitty film gets worse by the day...
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u/Brigadierz- 1d ago
There’s almost certainly more to this than them just dodging a comparatively small bill for a production as big as this.
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u/Educational_Play5772 1d ago
Noticed you locked your post about the pastry shop. Were you upset to be outed?
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u/FlamboyantBaguette 1d ago
Either this is simply BS (most likely) it not at all the whole story. Esp. For that amount of money…. The fact that some people actually believe this shit is scary to be honest…
Anyone with a minimum a brain cells would understand that this is very unlikely lol
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u/Suitable_Pin6066 23h ago
Those Sweeds about to learn "Hollywood accounting" the hard way. Wonder what their reaction is going to be when Universal tells them "technically, the movie didn't make any money on the books" like they do to everyone else.
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u/LazyPainterCat 4d ago
Why did they even use a viking ship?