The most famous name in personal development is now a defendant in a lawsuit about a book on how to survive suffering.

On October 26, Law360 reported that a Los Angeles producer sued Tony Robbins, Fox Corp., her former business partner and multiple other entities in California federal court, alleging they engaged in "disloyalty, concealment and self-dealing" and iced her out of adapting Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" into a feature film.

The producer is Marisa Polvino. The docket lists the defendants as Anthony Robbins, Tony Robbins Productions, Fox Corporation, MarVista Entertainment, Fox Entertainment Studios, Kate Cohen, Rax Productions and KCD Media. The complaint was filed October 25.

Nothing here has been proven. These are one side's allegations in an opening filing, and no defendant response appears in the coverage published so far.

What the complaint claims

The project is old. Polvino and Cohen, who had been developing the movie alongside Robbins for years, bought the book's film rights in 2016 from Frankl's estate. They did it through their production company, OLF Productions.

The source material is not small. Frankl's account of imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps has sold more than 16 million copies in over 50 languages since 1946.

The lawsuit says development turned contentious after MarVista joined in 2024 and entered a financing agreement with OLF providing a $300,000 development fund, shared approval rights and profit participation.

Then, according to the filing, the structure came apart. Within months, the complaint alleges, Cohen diverted funds and other pieces of the project — including development assets and negotiations to renew the underlying rights — to a new company. It further alleges she told MarVista and Fox representatives that Polvino had agreed to surrender her rights and fees to the movie as compensation for embezzling $500,000 from another company the two had co-owned. Polvino denies authorizing the transfer.

Robbins enters the story at the rights expiry. Polvino accuses him of cutting her out by acquiring those rights after they lapsed in 2024. MarVista and Fox, the complaint says, later used the situation as grounds to declare OLF in breach of their deal and to negotiate freely with Robbins.

Her lawyer, Jacob Struck, writes in the filing that she is suing to recover "the money, rights, opportunities, credit, and value that were stripped away." The suit seeks a court order restoring Polvino's rights to the film, plus unspecified damages.

The part every coach should sit with

Strip out the studio names and this is an argument almost everyone in this industry has had, or will.

Someone brings the idea. Someone brings the audience. Someone brings the money. For two or three years the thing is exciting enough that nobody wants to be the person who asks about renewal dates, assignment clauses, credit, or what happens if one party stops talking to the other.

Then the asset gets valuable, and the paperwork becomes the only thing that matters.

Notice what the complaint actually fights over. Not the creative work. The chain of title. Who held the rights, when they expired, who was allowed to renew them, and whether a partner could speak for the other in a room full of studio executives.

That is the coaching-business version too: who owns the curriculum, the recordings, the list, the trademark, the co-authored book, the joint venture's client relationships. Lending your name to someone else's project is a licensing decision. Most coaches treat it as a friendship.

The questions worth answering before the next collaboration: What exactly is being licensed, and for how long. What happens when the term ends. Who can sign on behalf of the venture. Who owns the materials created along the way. What the exit looks like if one side wants out.

Where it goes from here

A notification of an action involving copyright was filed with the court on October 25, which means the rights question is squarely in federal hands rather than a private argument between producers.

Robbins, Fox, MarVista and Cohen have not yet answered the complaint publicly. Responses are the next thing to watch, and they typically arrive within weeks.