Sausage Party Director Denies Making Staff Work Overtime For Free

Greg Tiernan, the joint director of Seth Rogen animated comedy ‘Sausage Party’, has denied that his company made staff work overtime for free or be threatened with dismissal.

Speaking on behalf of Nitrogen Studios, he told The Hollywood Reporter: “These statements are without merit.

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“Our production adhered to all overtime regulations and our contractual obligations to our artists. Any time that any concern was brought up, it was handled appropriately.”

However, testament from employees on the movie, directed by Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, paints a grim picture of how the R-rated feature cartoon was made.

It was after an interview with Tiernan and Vernon on the Cartoon Brew website that the comments section began filling up with remarks from anonymous former employees.

Said one: “The production cost were kept low because Greg would demand people work overtime for free. If you wouldn’t work late for free your work would be assigned to someone who would stay late or come in on the weekend. Some artist were even threatened with termination for not staying late to hit a deadline.”

“People would go in to talk to Greg [Tiernan] or give their notice and there’d be screaming about being blacklisted,” one animator told Variety.

Another said that the company had no human resources staff, and complaints would be directed to their line producer Nicole Stine, who is Tiernan’s wife.

“There was no one you could go to,” the animator said. “It was uncomfortable.”

And while some said that ‘half the animation team’ was not credited for its work, other workers on the film, however, have reportedly said that they had a positive experience.

“Artists were expected to get their work done on time and meet their quotas,” said one.

It’s said that the situation came to a head, with a joint letter from up to 30 animators and supervisors being written to Annapurna Pictures, the film’s co-financier, about unpaid overtime, at which point the producer stepped in paid staff accordingly.

Tiernan would neither confirm or deny receiving the joint letter, according to THR.

The movie, which also features Jonah Hill and Kristen Wiig among the voice cast, opened to a huge $33.6 million in the US last weekend.

Image credits: Sony/Rex Features