Leverage Star Sues After Being Dropped From Reboot Over Assault Allegations

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Former Leverage star Timothy Hutton has launched a lawsuit against the producers for dropping him from last year’s fan favorite IMDb TV reboot.

Former Leverage star Timothy Hutton is suing the producers behind the hit series after being left out of the IMDb TV reboot following his sexual assault allegations. From 2008 to 2012, Hutton was one of the key members of the fan favorite television show Leverage, which centered on a team of former criminals who now use their skills to take out corrupt figures preying on the weak. Hutton played Nate Ford, the so-called “Mastermind” of the group. He starred alongside Gina Bellman, Beth Riesgraf, Aldis Hodge, and Christian Kane.

Leverage: Redemption was first announced to be in the works at IMDb TV in 2020 before premiering last summer. Save for Hutton, the entire original cast returned for the new series. Mere months before Leverage: Redemption was confirmed, Hutton was accused of rape by former child actress Sera Johnston. Buzzfeed News published the initial report, which stated Hutton assaulted Johnston when she was 14 years old. Though prosecutors ultimately didn’t press charges due to a lack of evidence, Hutton was left out of Leverage: Redemption. The series then brought in ER and Falling Skies vet Noah Wyle to effectively replace him on the team.

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Now Hutton is suing Leverage’s producers for pushing him out of the reboot. Per Variety, the suit alleges Electric Entertainment, the company run by Leverage producer Dean Devlin, dropped Hutton from Redemption following the Buzzfeed report without doing its own investigation into Johnston’s claims. Electric also ignored evidence provided by Hutton’s representation. It’s said that Hutton’s team reached an oral agreement to include him in the series, and by leaving him out, Electric violated his pay-or-play provision. As a result, the suit claims Electric owes him $3 million.

As of this time, Electric Entertainment has not responded to the suit. Leverage: Redemption was renewed for season 2 in December, and the current expectation is that all cast members – Wyle included – will return. The reboot explained Hutton’s absence by saying Nate had passed away a year before; his teammates make several mentions of him throughout the show, with Bellman’s Sophie Deveraux especially mourning him as his widow.

It isn’t yet clear if the Leverage: Redemption creative team will retroactively work Hutton into the series, or if the actor will win this suit at all. Most recently, Hutton appeared on the ABC miniseries Women of the Movement; before that, his last TV role came in the controversial Fox series Almost Family, which was canceled in the wake of his rape allegations. This likely isn’t the Leverage: Redemption update fans had been hoping for, but nevertheless, stay tuned for more updates.

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Source: Variety

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About The Author Rachel Labonte (3230 Articles Published)

Rachel LaBonte is a news, feature, and movie review writer for Screen Rant with a deep passion for film and television. A graduate of Emerson College, she majored in Media Arts Production while specializing in screenwriting. She’s been a writer ever since high school when she realized she was rather good at it and joined as many entertainment news clubs as she could while in school. Most notably, she wrote for Emerson’s website Emertainment Monthly, and one of her film reviews won an Evvy (Emerson’s student awards) for Best Review. Her deep love of movies led to her working at a movie theater for five years, which she loved despite the angry customers. An avid reader who constantly buys books before reading the ones she already owns, Rachel is a huge fan of superheroes (especially of the Marvel variety) and wizards and will likely never be able to catch up on all the movies/TV shows she longs to watch.

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