Michael Oher and The Blindside

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
304

So many differing stories about the money, it makes one wonder.

"According to the legal filing, The Blind Side netted the Tuohys and their two children $225,000 each plus 2.5 percent of the “defined net proceeds” — a substantial sum for a movie that made $309 million at the box office. But Oher claims that a contract signed in 2007 waived his rights to any proceeds “without any payment whatsoever.”

“Tuohy contradicted his son’s claim on benefitting financially from the film: He said that “we didn’t make any money off the movie” except from the $14,000 that Michael Lewis gave to each family member from his share of the deal.”

“The co-founders denied the accusations that they paid the Tuohys millions for the film. It was stated that the family was paid approximately $700,000 to be split among themselves. This was reportedly after Alcon Entertainment paid the talent agency of the Tuohy family and Oher $767,000.”

So which one is it? 14K per family member? 767K total? 225k each, plus 2.5 percent of the “defined net proceeds” to the Tuohy family? I tend to believe the last statement, because it’s from a legal filing, not someone just running their mouth. And I’m wondering what “defined net proceeds” are on a 300 million dollar movie? That could be a boatload of money. And since the Tuohy’s were Michael’s conservators, why did they negotiate that for themselves and not for him? I really would love to find out what those “defined net proceeds” are. And maybe next week, another story on how much money they were all paid. I think that when you’re telling the truth, your story doesn’t keep changing.

5 Likes
305

Michael Lewis says there isn’t much money in the ‘defined net proceeds’. He says he didn’t get much from Moneyball and that was also a very successful movie ($110M, production costs $50M)

1 Like
306

This is an interesting observation and I believe it’s a point that contributes to which party (Michael Oher or the Tuohys) we tend to support. None of us knows the actual financial accounting, the legalities or the kind of influence/pressure that was exerted to reach the current situation. Perhaps our opinions are a result, in good part, of whether we saw The Blind Side as Michael Oher’s story or the Tuohy’s story.

Personally I always saw it as Michael Oher’s story. I had viewed the Tuohys as a benevolent catalyst to a success story. I thought of The Blind Side as a feel good movie about a real life example of overcoming very difficult circumstances.

However now that I have heard the allegations of possible exploitation I am saddened and less enamored of the Tuohys. In my opinion they seemed to be profiting from Michael Oher’s story through a lot of self-promotion. It saddens me when a message of valuing and helping others gets muddled/muddied with questionable moral/ethical behavior.

7 Likes
307

Does Michael Lewis have credibility in this, or is he completely invested in keeping the story as it is? A legal filing would be something I’d believe.

1 Like
308

I think the Tuohys did a bad job of being the conservators. They didn’t (it seems) file the required paperwork but maybe didn’t think they had to in the first few years as there was no money to report. Oher received his scholarship from the school but nothing was ever paid to Oher or in any bank account. It also appears that after he graduated, he hired his own attorneys, accountants, agents and the Tuohys just dropped out of the conservatorship and failed to terminate it. Not a good look.

But by then the book and movie rights had been sold.

Leigh Anne did go on the lecture circuit, but Michael joined her for some of that, and it’s unclear how he was paid for those appearances. He couldn’t do it full time as he was working in the NFL. He wrote his book and contracted for that outside the conservatorship (I’m reading this book right now - no way did he write it.)

309

This post piqued my interest. I liked Roger Ebert’s reviews…and the fact he was a fellow UIUC grad endeared him to me.

In an attempt to better understand the “problematic” nature of the film I stumbled upon the following blog from 2014. I found it (and the comments) thought-provoking.

The Michael Oher story will play out in a courtroom but regardless of its outcome, I believe it is also an opportunity for increasing awareness on many issues.

7 Likes
310

Some of the comments are far more egregious than Leigh Anne’s actions, and those were worthy of some criticism.

1 Like
311

I just finished reading Oher’s first book, published in 2011. It reviews his early years, how he attended school regularly when he was in foster care but rarely when he was living with his mother. Most of the things in the movie were also mentioned in the book, that Sean Tuohy’s first real contact was paying for Oher’s lunch, that the bio teacher (and a few others) were really nice to him and tried different learning/teaching styles like oral tests and reports, acting out information, other ways to memorize. Leigh Anne did take him shopping early in their relationship. Collins did study with him and reorganize her classes to match his. He did meet with Michael Lewis about the book.

He main objection was that the movie made him look illiterate. He didn’t seem to have as many issues with the book, but then complains that his ranking for the NFL draft dropped because ESPN anchors were critical of him and his intelligence; the movie wasn’t release until after the draft and after he started playing in Baltimore, so couldn’t have dropped him in the draft.

He doesn’t really talk about the Tuohys much, just that they were really the first to figure out he was couch surfing and that he stayed at their home several times during his junior year and they ask him to stay for senior year.

He also makes it clear that he chose Ole Miss because he wanted to stay close to ‘home’ (and he meant both the Tuohys and his bio family, plus those whose couches he slept on), wanted to go to school with Collins, didn’t want to play against Ole Miss.

The movie did make it seem like Miss Sue was a private tutor for Michael, but she was actually hired by Ole Miss and tutored many football players. But he was happy to have her with him at college. She did work with him for 16 hours per week to get him through high school

I’m sure Oher did not write the first book. It is very formal writing and doesn’t sound like a 24 year old from the south at all. I’ve started his new book and that sounds like he may have had a bigger role in drafting it.

When he started in Baltimore, it was Leigh Anne who helped him set up his apartment and get established. He talks about wanting it to be a place where Collins and SJ would come, but nothing about his girlfriend, her kids, or really Sean and Leigh Anne coming to be with him in Baltimore. In fact, the girlfriend is not mentioned at all.

1 Like
312

I read the story linked above and the follow up with the 2 young men in question. I never bothered to look at the comments but my impression is that Leigh Anne Tuohy is very full of herself, self righteous and an all around unpleasant woman.

2 Likes
313

The first one was a pretty quick read. A lot of the stories follow the movie pretty well except it give you a better sense of the timing (two high schools in 9th grade, tried to get into Briarcrest as a sophomore and they made him go to another school for a few months, the he started at Briarcrest but not living with the Tuohys).

He played basketball, baseball and track before football.

I’m reading the second one now. Not much meat.

3 Likes
314
13 Likes
315

More abhorrent Michael Lewis behavior here: in a long-winded interview about his upcoming (sanitizing and sympathetic, I’m sure) bio of SBF, Lewis insinuates that Oher is suffering from CTE. Disgusting.

IMG_3916
IMG_3916828×1516 373 KB

2 Likes
316

Thanks for posting. This thread helped me realize I don’t like Mr. Lewis much. Not going to read his new SBF book either. I wonder if he is concerned that his new book sales might suffer because of all the Oher and the Blind Side publicity?

10 Likes
317

That’s egregious!

6 Likes
318

I’d be more worried that the testimony in the SBF trial is going to make his remarks that “There is still a Sam-Bankman-Fried-shaped hole in the world that now needs filling” sound utterly ridiculous.

Lewis is claiming that this is not like Bernie Madoff because crypto was never a real business. But neither was Madoff’s supposed “split strike” strategy. What Lewis really means is that Madoff stole from respectable widows and orphans, and SBF stole from inveterate gamblers. It’s another form of elite disdain for poor people who play the lottery. Or saying we don’t care about gambling because only poor people get addicted to casinos or have their legs broken by the mafia when they get into debt.

But SBF is not a Robin Hood character, he’s actually just stealing from the poor (because that’s what gamblers usually are or become) to bribe rich politicians, sports stars and elite academics (studying “effective altruism”) to create a smokescreen.

5 Likes
319

I just read Michael Oher’s two books and The Blind Side. There really aren’t many facts in dispute as to how Oher came to go to Briarcrest school, how he met the Tuohys, why he was living in their home.

Oher does not like that the book/movie portrayed him as not knowing much about football and how he is portrayed in the movie as not being smart, having to learn football plays from Sean Tuohy Jr. But his school records speak for themselves. Michael claims he went to school for 2 years when he lived with the nice foster mom Miss Velma, which Lewis writes in the book that the foster home was terrible, that Michael had to sleep on a wooden bed frame with no mattress, and that Velma and her twin sister had too many foster kids and were cruel to Michael and his brother. There are very few school records for those years so if Michael went to school those years, the school system and the foster care system don’t have those records. He did go to a public hs for 9th grade, and played football (but mainly basketball); the football team wasn’t very good, and his grades were all Fs. He didn’t play football again until 11th grade at Briarcrest.

The Memphis newspaper did a series of stories on poor kids from Memphis who were great athletes who never made it to college because their grades weren’t good enough and they had no one to help them work the system like Oher had the Tuohys to get his grades up to (barely) acceptable. These really good athletes could wait until three years after their hs class had graduated to get to the NFL, but by them many were dead or in jail (plus they wouldn’t have those 3 years of playing time). Oher with the Tuohys help, was the ONE who made it. Lewis listed a few examples, one a kid who was recruited by Bobby Bowden. Bowden came looking for the kid in senior year but he’d dropped out of school because his grades were so bad. The college coaches couldn’t do anything to prevent the hs kids from dropping out, getting arrested, fathering children they then had to support (no salary as a college player in those days).

After Oher, the applications came pouring in to Briarcrest from kids in the projects, but the school couldn’t take them because their grades were just so bad. Oher was a fluke that he got in, was intelligent enough to learn most of the basics - with lots and lots of tutoring - to retake the ‘courses’ for replacement grades.

Oher wasn’t faultless. He relied on the Tuohys all through college. He got into trouble in a fight where a small child was injured and Sean Tuohy hired the lawyer to get him out of trouble. He needed Miss Sue as his tutor.

I don’t think anyone is claiming the conservatorship was anything other than a farce to get the NCAA to approve Oher to go to Ole Miss. It should have been terminated as soon as it could have been, and certainly when Oher graduated and needed to sign his NFL contracts. They all treated it as terminated. Under NCAA rules at the time, Oher couldn’t have signed a book deal or movie deal (IMO) so the Tuohys did it as a family story.

1 Like
320

Interesting update here.

According to the Tuohys’ tax returns they received around 432k from the movie. The article says Oher received 138k although it isn’t clear what documentation supports the 138k figure.

2 Likes
321

I’ve read that the Tuohys paid all the taxes on the book and movie contracts, and because Michael refused the money, they put his share into a trust for his children.

Maybe the $138k is the amount in the trust?

322

Reading the article and a few others that have just released it looks like the Tuohy’s handled the money appropriately. I wonder why the attorneys for Michael Oher pursued a lawsuit knowing that the information would become public? Seems like such a waste especially for Michael and his reputation.

1 Like
323

432k is certainly a lot less than the millions Oher claimed in his lawsuit that the Tuohys made.

1 Like