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Doug Ford settles with makers of film about his brother after $10 million lawsuit

While juggling the imposition of new pandemic lockdown restrictions, Ontario's vaccine rollout and, you know, leading the province through a global pandemic, Premier Doug Ford has been fighting another battle behind closed doors — a legal one, in fact.

The controversial politician last year filed a hefty lawsuit against the makers of a somewhat well-received movie about his even more controversial brother, former Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

Run This Town, which address the now world-famous crack scandal of Doug's late brother and which donned its protagonist in laughable prosthetics, allegedly misportrayed the fallen mayor, at least in his older brother's eyes.

Producers claimed the movie was not intended to be a documentary, but somewhat of a fictionalization.

In the legal action, Doug said that filmmakers went out of their way to show Rob — who his wife Renata made multiple domestic violence calls about — as "a caricature and a #MeToo monster" whose likeness was "exploited" without authorization.

The elder Ford was seeking $10 million in damages for "misappropriation of personality and breach of privacy for publicly placing the plaintiff in a false light" through his suit, filed last April.

As the film was being created, the now-Premier had apparently reached out to creators to vet the script — a request that was never responded to, let alone fulfilled.

It is unknown how much the litigation settled for.

Lead photo by

Bruce Reeve


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