Editing Creative accounting (section)

=== Hollywood accounting ===
{{Main articles|Hollywood accounting}}
Practiced by some Hollywood film studios, creative accounting can be used to conceal earnings of a film to distort the profit participation promised to certain participants of the film's earnings. Essentially, participants in the gross revenue of the film stay unaffected but profit participants are presented with a deflated or negative number on profitability, leading to less or no payments to them following a film's success. Famous examples of deceiving [[Good faith (law)|good faith]] profit participants involve [[Darth Vader]] actor [[David Prowse]] (with $729M adjusted gross earnings on ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'')<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=starwars.htm|title=Star Wars Movies at the Box Office |website=Box Office Mojo |access-date=2019-09-23}}</ref> and ''[[Forrest Gump]]'' novel writer [[Winston Groom]] (with $661M gross theatrical revenue)<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-24-mn-5473-story.html|title='Gump' a Smash but Still in the Red, Paramount Says: Movies: Writer, who is due to get 3% of net profits, hires lawyer to question the studio's accounting practices.|date=1995-05-24|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-23}}</ref>—both of whom have been paid $0 on their profit participation due to the films "being in the red".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://priceonomics.com/why-do-all-hollywood-movies-lose-money/|title=Why Do All Hollywood Movies Lose Money?|website=Priceonomics|date=30 July 2013 |language=en|access-date=2019-09-23}}</ref><ref name=":0" />