Get ready to call him the "25 Million Dollar Sheriff." James Best is suing Time-Warner/Warner Bros over unpaid royalties.

Best claims he was owed 5% of all Dukes of Hazzard merchandising revenue for stuff that contained Sheriff Rosco likeness. By his estimates/his attorney's estimates, that could have been 5 to 25 million during the Dukes heyday alone.

Best has actually collected something around $175,000 for this stuff in the last 30 years.

I'm working on an HNet homepage update and will supply more details there, but that's the meat n' potatoes of it!

I can see the defense argument already ...

"No Mr. Best, we promised you 5% of 5% of 5% of all Dukes of Hazzard merchandising revenue containing Sheriff Rosco's likeness."

I can see the defense argument already ...

"No Mr. Best, we promised you 5% of 5% of 5% of all Dukes of Hazzard merchandising revenue containing Sheriff Rosco's likeness."

LOL funny Hoss!

Wow, I don't know much about these things (but that's never stopped me from airing an uneducated opinion). $175,000 over the 30 year span doesn't sound like very much. Usually in these cases the truth lies somewhere in the middle so I'll predict Rosco will get a decent paycheck from it but it won't be 25 million. I suppose that's a pretty easy prediction to make.

He's certainly going to get enough to buy a Rolls Royce and put a siren on top.

Go Rosco!

Thanks for posting this Brian.

By my calculations, WB would have had to have sold $100,000,000 in merchandise with Jimmie's likeness on it to owe him $5 million (and half a billion to get to $25 million). That seems a little high to me (considering the 2005 movie didn't even gross that much.) WB contends it's sold about $3.5 million in merchandise. That might be a little low. As Brian said, I think the truth lies somewhere in between.