PGA Denies Jon Peters Producer's Mark on 'A Star Is Born'

The producer of the 1976 version of the film will not be eligible for awards.

Jon Peters, who produced the 1976 version of A Star Is Born, will not be recognized as a producer of this year's Bradley Cooper-directed iteration of the film, the Producers Guild of America confirmed Tuesday.

Peters, who produced the previous version starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, was involved in helping put together the new version, starring Cooper and Lady Gaga, which has had a decade-long development history. Bill Gerber, another of the film's producers, told THR last year, that "there were a lot of complicated deals on Star Is Born, a lot of heavy-hitters. And Jon could not have been more helpful in getting it all in line."

But in reviewing the contributions of the various producers on the film — in addition to Peters and Gerber, the credited producers include Cooper, Todd Phillips and Lynette Howell Taylor — the PGA decided that Peters did not perform enough producing functions to earn its Producers Mark, the letters p.g.a. that appear after a producer's name in a film's screen credits.

Warner Bros., which is releasing the film Oct. 5, released a statement saying, "Jon Peters’ attachment to this property goes as far back as 1976. Legally, we had to honor the contractual obligation in order to make this film.”

The credit issue surfaced in the wake of a report by Jezebel on Tuesday detailing how Peters has been sued for sexual harassment by numerous women in incidents ranging from 1996-2008.

The PGA not giving Peters an official mark on the film makes him ineligible for the guild's Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award, its equivalent of a best film award. While the studio behind a movie decides who it lists as a producer in a film's credits, the PGA determines if that person did enough work on the movie to get the official PGA mark, which is needed to qualify for the guild's awards.

The fact that Peters is ineligible for the PGA award also likely means that he will not share in the Oscar for best picture, should the film be nominated since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences generally follows the PGA's lead in deciding which producers are deserving of awards consideration. Academy rule 16.3 reads, "To qualify as a producer nominee for a nominated picture, the producer must have been determined eligible for a PGA award for the picture, or have appealed the PGA's refusal of such eligibility."

In the case of A Star Is Born, the question of which producers have the Producers Mark is more than academic given the film's awards potential. A Star Is Born debuted at the Venice International Film Festival to enthusiastic reviews and then moved on to the Toronto International Film Festival, where it has received lots of early Oscar buzz. But Peters does not have the PGA mark following his name on the print of A Star Is Born currently screening in Toronto.