A years-long battle over the legal rights to the legacy of punk rock pioneers The Ramones has finally been settled after the feud boiled over because of a shelved Pete Davidson-led Netflix biopic about the band’s late singer.
But the bitter and personal battle may rage on between the family members of the founders — who are all now dead — with a former manager still in the crosshairs now saying he’s unfairly facing the prospect of having to pay millions in legal fees or judgments.
Guitarist Johnny Ramone’s widow, Linda Cummings-Ramone, was transferred the remaining half of the estate company Ramones Productions Inc. from singer Joey Ramone’s brother, Mickey Leigh, as part of the deal finalized Wednesday.
The transfer means Cummings-Ramone — who was Joey’s ex-girlfriend before marrying his former bandmate — now has “free rein to fully control” the estate, according to court filings. The settlement was struck as Leigh faced a protracted legal fight where he could’ve been on the hook for millions.
The deal also allows Leigh to keep his brother’s song copyrights and other intellectual property rights, rendering him “finally free to promote his brother’s legacy without corporate obstruction,” Leigh’s friend and longtime Ramones manager Dave Frey said.
But the highly anticipated movie based on Leigh’s memoir that was intended to preserve the singer’s legacy seems all but dead in the water after the rock ‘n roll brouhaha — and still has Frey caught in the middle.
Frey remains a defendant in a $15 million lawsuit alleging he breached his financial duties to the RPI for floating the Netflix plans.
The ex-manager, however, argued the still-unproduced film project was “secured with STX Films solely by Mickey’s attorney, not by me.”
Frey said the movie’s producers have been sent notification of the settlement, and is now awaiting a decision regarding whether it will still be optioned. The film was to be based on Lee’s memoir of his brother, “I Slept With Joey Ramone.”.
“It would’ve been good for everybody, it would’ve been good for the Ramones as well,” Leigh said. “But now we can share with people what they’re walking into, and start to do a lot more work for Joey.”
Frey, a former board member for RPI, was first accused in 2023 of violating the estate’s agreement by reportedly developing the biopic without the full permission of Cummings-Ramone, he said. Leigh had argued the film was not a Ramones biopic, but a memoir about his relationship with his beloved brother.
An arbitrator decided the next year that Frey had acted in “disruptive and negative conduct” in relation to his board position for pursuing the film project, and he was dropped from the board in 2024.
But the ex-manager contends that, “by contract, the film was based exclusively on both Mickey Leigh’s personal memoir … and the individual life rights” of Mickey and his brother, he told The Post.
“Therefore, the project was not and could never be a ‘Ramones film,’” he said.
“It’s not a Ramones story,” Leigh previously told The Post of the book, which profiles the iconic singer who battled debilitating OCD before his 2000 death.
“It’s a story about growing up with a guy … who defeated the odds and became an inspiration to millions. That’s what it’s about.”
Though the flick – announced in April 2021 – has since been put on an apparent indefinite hold, Frey remains in court with Cummings-Ramone — and both sides must hand over “evidence” in the case by the end of the month.
“The likely outcome is that I am going to probably run out of money — there’ll be a default judgment against me,” Frey told The Post. “Then I’ll bankrupt, and that’ll be bad: but that’s just when I see the real problem.”
The manager argues the case, if decided in favor of Cummings-Ramone, could set a difficult precedent for musicians’ intellectual property in the future.
“Anything [done] on their own in a solo capacity [would] need to get the approval of their band entity or band company,” he said, “because anything they do as a solo artist could detract from the band obligations.
“Mickey walked away with Michael Jackson,” he added, “and she walked away with the Jackson 5.”
“I had hoped that would be the end of this war, and I am disappointed, but unfortunately not surprised that Mr. Frey decided to exacerbate the harm he has caused by making these statements to the Post,” Cummings-Ramone said in an email to a Post reporter.
“To be clear, RPI and I are still in litigation with Mr. Frey, and we will let his misstatements and ongoing harm to the company be handled through that process.”
Leigh agreed the fight is “not really over,” noting one recent instance in which the official Joey Ramone profile tied to the band’s social media accounts was replaced with a “disturbing” new one created just before the settlement was inked.
“I still have to oversee things, there are still things that can come up that are going to cause conflict,” he said.
“I’m still apprehensive about my freedom. I’m not sure if I’m free quite yet.”
