Canada: Beyoncé Can't Work It Out With Gate Five Studios

Joystiq.com, via Hollywood Reporter, is reporting that singer, actress, and all around diva, Beyoncé has been trying to dance her way out of a lawsuit started by her developer, Gate Five Studios ("Gate Five") for allegedly backing out of a video game called Superstar: Beyoncé. The case, which was started back in April, 2011, alleges $67 million damages for Gate Five's investment in the game, along with an estimated $100 million in profits Gate Five would have made had Beyoncé put a ring on it. In her defence, Beyoncé claims that Gate Five failed to secure sufficient financing by a certain date and, as a result, did not have to give notice to terminate her agreement with Gate Five.

What puts this case back in the news, however, is that Beyoncé has recently lost an appeal of an earlier court's decision denying her motion for summary judgment, which would have ended the case. Instead, the appellate court found that there were issues of fact that remained about whether the alleged lack of financing affected Beyoncé's right to terminate her agreement with Gate Five.

While the appellate court wasn't tasked with finding (and didn't find) any fault on behalf of either party to the lawsuit, its decision means that Beyoncé will find herself going to trial over whether or not she could walk away from the deal the way she did. It will likely all boil down to what was necessary to secure the level of funding that Gate Five promised it would.  To complicate matters, Gate Five is alleging that Beyoncé was aware of an agreement that would have allowed Gate Five to meet its funding target at the time she backed out of the game. Only time, and evidence, will tell what the outcome of this dispute will be.

To quote Joystiq.com (because it really is a closing that's hard to top):

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