What may or may not have gone down on Prime Video‘s upcoming Criminal now looks set to end up in a California courtroom.
“This action arises from the sustained sexual, racial, national origin, and religious harassment that Plaintiff ljaaz Noobu, a Sri Lankan American filmmaker with fourteen years of experience in the film industry, endured while working on the production of the forthcoming television series Criminal,” states a 12-claim complaint filed earlier this week in LA Superior Court.
In the works for over three years, the Amazon MGM produced show is based on Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ 2006 debuting acclaimed graphic novel series. The hard boiled Criminal was officially ordered to series by Prime in January 2024, but still has yet to launch on the streamer.
“Hired in February 2023 as a production assistant to showrunner and Executive Producer Ed Brubaker, Plaintiff came to the production eager to contribute his talent and technical knowledge to a marquee project, the pretty plainspoken jury trial seeking document from Burbank attorney Fahim Rahman says. “Instead, he was subjected to a workplace made toxic and abusive by the very individuals entrusted with authority over it.”
With claims that Noobu was subjected to cracks about rape and “demeaning stereotypes” for being the only Muslim on set and asked by Brubaker if the PA was a supporter of Hamas, the suit seeks a variety of unspecified damages. Also named in the complaint as defendants alongside Brubaker are Amazon Services, MGM, Criminal EP Phillip Barnett and others as defendants.
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“Executive Producer Phillip Barnett, rather than curbing this misconduct, enabled it-directing others to avoid documenting complaints and deliberately ignoring the abusive conduct occurring in plain view,” the filing notes. “The corporate Defendants, Amazon, MGM, Big Indie Pictures and Big Indie Gemini, Inc., failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the harassment despite the involvement of high-level supervisors and the presence of numerous witnesses, including senior producers.”
Noobu goes on to allege that he was banned from the set of Criminal for raising concerns about what Brubaker was doing and saying to him. Witnessing being shuffled off the show earlier than expected, Noobu says his credit on Criminal has now disappeared.
Reps for Amazon MGM and long time Captain America scribe Brubaker did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment on the legal action.
Described as an interlocking universe of crime stories based on the multi-Eisner Award-winning graphic novel series, Criminal has a big name cast including Charlie Hunnam, Emilia Clarke, Luke Evans, Garrett Hedlund, Gus Halper, Richard Jenkins, John Hawkes, Adria Arjona, Logan Browning, Kadeem Hardison, Pat Healy, Taylor Sele, Aliyah Camacho, Michael Mando, Marvin Jones III, Michael Xavier and Dominic Burgess.
