Living the Dream: Hollywood Star Sues DMV for More Than $1.44M

You all know Ashton Kutcher, right? He played the idiot man-child Kelso on “That 70’s Show.” He has also starred in several films including “The Butterfly Effect,” “My Boss’s Daughter,” and “Just Married” (each one making us wonder whether he was really acting when he played Kelso).

But despite a track record of rotten movies, he is actually quite successful and keeps himself busy with multiple TV shows, commercials, an upcoming Steve Jobs biopic, and dealing with an estranged wife who’s almost old enough to collect Social Security checks ...

Ha-ha, we kid (not really).

And if you think the accomplishments listed in the above sound pretty great (well, some of them at least), none of them compare to the sheer awesomeness of what his production company, Katalyst Media, is trying to do: sue the California Department of Motor Vehicles for more than $1.44 million in damages.

Why is he suing the DMV? Simply put, they wasted his time. Here's how it happened.

The DMV allegedly agreed to let Kutcher’s production team use their offices to film a reality series based on the day-to-day activities of their department.

"The series was conceived and designed to capture the variously humorous, emotional, dramatic, moving, humanizing and entertaining situations that arise on a daily basis at DMV's more than 170 offices across the state of California," according to a copy of the suit obtained by the Hollywood Reporter.

However, it wasn’t until after they agreed to do the show that someone at the DMV suddenly realized that a series produced by the same guy who did "Punk'd" could lead to potentially embarrassing moments for the department. So they backed out of the agreement.

“[A]fter getting a commitment in writing to work together on four initial episodes and up to six possible seasons of the show, and after Katalyst secured a deal with cable network TruTV to air the show, the DMV is said to have ‘abruptly and without justifiable excuse, changed course,’” according to the Hollywood Reporter.

"In a five sentence letter to Katalyst producer Jason Goldberg, [DMV deputy director Mike] Marando simply declared that DMV no longer considered the series to be in its 'best interests' and would therefore 'not be moving forward on such a project,'" the suit reads.

Ashton Kutcher

When asked for a comment by the Hollywood Reporter, DMV deputy director of public affairs Mike Marando had this to say: "We don't comment on pending litigation."

And while we would like to see Kutcher win simply because we think he has been wronged, we really want to see him win because of the legal precedent it could set: he's suing them for wasting his time!

(H/T: BI)

This story has been updated.