Nick Reiner‘s battle to avoid life in prison without parole or even the death penalty if found guilty of the bloody 2025 killing of his parents may hinge on a decision the accused murderer allegedly made or didn’t make nearly three years ago.

Later this morning in downtown L.A., lawyers for the youngest son of the late Rob Reiner and Michele Singer will clash with attorneys for the trustee in charge of the now over $1.6 million trust that the Few Good Men director and his spouse set up over 30 years ago for their now incarcerated offspring.

At the heart of the highly charged matter, there will be two key components of Monday’s session in civil court before LA Superior Court Judge Ruben Garcia. One, whether or not 32-year-old Reiner knew he was eligible for over $550,000 of his December 2, 1993-created “children’s trust” when he turned 30 on September 14, 2023. Two, why that money was not disbursed by a previous trustee to the addiction addled Reiner at that time.

Advocates for the currently public defender represented Reiner insist the recently re-indicted Being Charlie co-writer immediately needs access to some of that trust fund money to muster a real fight with a top tier defense team for his innocence, and perhaps life.

On the other side, while stating “the Trustee does not contend that Nick is or is not disqualified, and she presumes him innocent,” an ex-Britney Spears trustee who recently has been put in charge of Reiner’s trust, says records show Reiner tuned down the initial $558,000 due to him three years ago — and that ship has sailed.

In fact, while attorneys for trustee Jodi Montgomery do “not dispute that an actual controversy exists regarding the construction of the Trust and that declaratory relief is an appropriate vehicle to resolve it,” they argue based on the way the parameters and obligations of the trust, he not entitled to a dime until he’s 35-years old — and maybe not even then depending on how his criminal case ends up.

As made evident in his June petition for the money and a declaration filed in the LASC docket on August 14, Nick Reiner says that’s not what went down at all.

“I relied on the Trustees of my Trust to administer it fairly, for my benefit, and in accordance with its terms,” Reiner swears in the August 13 declaration.

“In the Successor Trustee’s recent filings, she estimates that at least $558,000 became due and payable to me when I turned 30 years old – but she states that I ‘chose to’ leave it in the Trust as ‘Trust property’ so it will continue to be withheld from me now, and that I also will not receive any accrued interest or income because of my ‘consent,’” the Anita Wu represented Reiner adds.

Citing a previous trustee, he goes on to state: “However, to the best of my recollection, Mr. Fishburn never told me that this amount was owed to me; he never told me that he was trying to give me this money; he never asked me where I wanted it to be transferred; he never asked me for my consent to keep it as Trust property; and he never told me I would not receive any of the interest or income from the time of my 30th birthday.” 

Now, take a second to take that “to the best of my recollection” in.

Pretty standard speak for a declaration. However, in this very sad case, words that may take on a greater meaning when Reiner’s ongoing condition, medications and more are factored in by a court and LA County prosecutors.

The elder Reiners were discovered dead in their Brentwood home on December 14 by their youngest daughter. Nick Reiner was picked up and arrested by the LAPD a few hours later, miles and miles away from his parents’ home. He had been living with the 78-year-old All in the Family alum and his 70-year-old photographer spouse  for several reportedly uneasy weeks at the time of their deaths.

Back into the trust dispute, Montgomery’s cross-petition of last week sees the June 11 appointed trustee painting a very different and specific picture of what went down almost three years ago when the elder Reiners were still alive.

“Petitioner is informed and believes, based on information conveyed by prior trustee Matthew Fishburn, that Settlor Michele Singer Reiner advised him that Nick was aware he could take his Age 30 Distribution from the Trust when he turned thirty, and that Nick instead let those funds remain in the Trust — thereby consenting …to the Trustee electing to keep the distribution in the Trust until he desired it,” the Wright Kim Douglas lawyers for the self-described professional fiduciary note. “The Age 30 Distribution accordingly never left the Trust and remained Trust property under continued administration. Nick did not demand the distribution until his counsel did so in early April 2026.”

“There is also something deeply wrong with this picture,” Wu told Deadline Sunday

“The trustees and their lawyers are spending an extraordinary amount of time preparing hundreds of pages of ever-changing arguments, all to keep money from the very person whose interests they’re legally required to protect – and they’re paying themselves from Nick’s trust to do it,” the lawyer explained. “Meanwhile, Nick can’t access any of his own money, even to pay for his criminal defense.” 

“The new trustee has taken the position that she can’t even release $50 to his commissary account – money for basic hygiene items like shampoo – unless the court orders otherwise,” Wu says. “None of this serves Nick’s interests.  A trustee is supposed to serve the interests of the beneficiary, not use the beneficiary’s own money to litigate against him.”

Almost no one anticipates Judge Garcia will make a decision on the civil petitions today. With a September 15 hearing in Reiner’s criminal case on the calendar, and an October session in the struggle over the trust money penciled in, both sides in the trust matter are open to mediation, I hear. Whether or not they can, to quote the Good Book, “come now, and let us reason together” is a whole other matter.

Adding a further wrinkle to all this, it turns out Montgomery’s immediate predecessor as trustee had paid out a “discretionary distribution” of legal fees to firm Werksman Jackson & Quinn for Reiner’s defense earlier this year. Nick Kanin, who is named as a defendant in Reiner’s petition of earlier this summer, says in his own filing last week that “a check in the amount of WJQ’s fees was thereafter delivered to RCB’s office and forwarded to WJQ, with the parties coordinating delivery logistics between April 29 and April 30, 2026.”

Alan Jackson served as Reiner’s main defense lawyer when the charged with two counts of first-degree murder firs came down late last year. After a single December 17 court appearance and no plea by Reiner, the take-no-prisoners Jackson dramatically announced on January 7 he was withdrawing from the case.

Later that same day, Jackson said outside DTLA’s Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, that the move to step aside was due to “circumstances beyond our control but more importantly circumstances beyond Nick’s control have dictated that sadly it’s made it impossible for us to continue our representation of Nick.”

The widely respected Kimberly Greene of the public defenders’ office took over Reiner case that day too.

Emphatic that Reiner was not guilty of the charges against him, Jackson added to assembled journalists and onlookers” “I‘m legally and I’m ethically prohibited from explaining all the reasons why, I know that’s a question on everybody’s mind.”

It was clear to almost all it was about money. Jackson indicted as much in subsequent public statements.

Now, the effort to re-retain Jackson and his firm has come back to money — as it always does.

The Motion Picture Association and ByteDance have worked together to produce global artificial intelligence guardrails to protect intellectual property on TikTok, the companies announced on Monday.

Their new Memorandum of Understanding offers a framework for how generative AI video and image models can pull from existing film and TV properties.

“Today’s agreement illustrates our belief that copyright is a cornerstone of the film and television industry – and reinforces our commitment to protect creative content,” MPA chairman/CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement. “For the past several months, we have had constructive engagement with ByteDance to implement meaningful guardrails on Seedance and Seedream, and this MOU reflects our shared determination to continue our work together to further fortify those guardrails.”

“ByteDance respects the intellectual property rights that underpin creative industries around the world, and we believe responsible innovation in AI goes hand in hand with meaningful protections for rightsholders,” John Rogovin, General Counsel for ByteDance, added. “We appreciate the productive engagement with the MPA and its members as we continue to strengthen safeguards across our generative AI services. This MOU establishes an important framework for continued collaboration as the technology evolves, across a variety of products and platforms.”

The update comes months after the MPA sent the tech company a cease and desist letter in February due to its Seedream 5.0 Lite and Seedance 2.0 versions. As such, Seedream 5.0 Pro and Seedance 2.5 feature these advanced protections.

At the time, an AI-generated video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting on a rooftop had gone viral, prompting the MPA to warn of “infringing activity” regarding copyright laws.

Having secured rights to Marília Mendonça’s music and life story, Prime Video is preparing its own ‘Marília-verse’ of projects about the late Brazilian superstar singer, who tragically died in a 2021 plane crash at 26. The streamer has found its leading lady for the biopic, plucking an unknown first-timer to play the sertanejo icon.

Amazon MGM Studios is producing the Marília film about the star’s life, and it will stream on Prime Video next year. Before the movie, there is a documentary series entitled Marília Mendonça: Sentimento Louco, which launches this year.

Mendonça was the Brazilian singer and songwriter who rose from a modest background in the Brazilian state of Goiás. She went from singing in church as a teenager to becoming one of the biggest Brazilian artists of all time and a leading light in the sertanejo music scene, a genre that is hugely popular in Brazil and often likened to country music. Mendonça forged a path as a female artist, turning her personal stories into songs and is hailed for having given a voice to thousands of women.

Her tragic death in November 2021 in a plane crash en route to a concert caused a national outpouring of grief and a huge, ongoing interest in her life and music.

The lead role in Marília went to Marina Versos, which given the profile of the star is remarkable as she is a first-timer. Julia Priolli, Head of Creative for Brazilian Originals at Amazon MGM Studios, says Versos rose to the top after an exhaustive search to find the film’s title star. It was a big call as legions of fans will always have strong opinions on who plays a beloved icon.

“We were testing people for over a year, there were more than 1,000 tests,” Priolli explains to Deadline. “Her friends were like, ‘You should apply,’ and she said, ‘No, this is not for me, I’m not an actress.’” She relented and submitted a tape, and got called in.

“She sent us the video, and everybody fell in love with her. We brought her to São Paulo and she did a lot of screen tests, and we were sure it was her.”

The Prime Video doc and movie will capture her life story in different ways. “She went against all the stereotypes, she was more like the girl next door,” Priolli says about Mendonça. “It’s difficult to film because she went through so many different phases.”

The movie’s cast includes Hermila Guedes, Klara Castanho, Marcelo Serrado, Sophia Valverde, Daniel Haidar, Alejandro Claveaux, George Sauma, André Torquato, Luccas Oliver, Igor Armucho, Davi Bensá and Marcus Gouveia.

Dainara Toffoli directs the biopic, which was written by Carina Schulze and Patrícia Andrade.

The Amazon exec adds the Mendonça projects fit with Prime Video’s wider push into YA content, and also a focus on ripped-from-the-headlines stories.

“We have understood that our audience is really, really connected to true stories,” she says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s crime or if it’s someone’s inspirational story… if the story is real, people relate to it.”

In true crime, Prime Video Brazil enjoyed success with Tremembé, with a second season coming, but the emphasis on real-life stories goes beyond crime, which is where Marília enters the picture.

“We are starting this biopic strategy with Marília Mendonça and some upcoming stories not announced yet, it’s a huge thing for us.”

The Marília-verse will span more than the doc and biopic, Priolli adds. “We always thought about Marília as a broader ecosystem. We’re announcing the movie and the documentary now, but we’re also developing other projects that are still in development.”

The Marília-verse is also part of an effort by Prime Video to shine a light on parts of the country not regularly seen.

“We felt that we needed this diversity and to portray different parts of Brazil,” Priolli says. “Brazil is huge, there are so many stories to be told, and the Marília-verse is part of this bigger strategy.”

Meanwhile, Amazon MGM Studios and Prime are bettingg on Versos becoming a breakout talent. Priolli says: “She never acted before. It has been really intense. She started to prepare in January with a singing coach, an acting coach, a performance coach. She’s ready. She’s going to be a big star.”