Embattled movie producer and financier David Bergstein--vilified for his botched bid to merge with Image Entertainment, not to mention the fallout from the rumor, since denied, that he was taking meetings on a yacht at Cannes while vendors went unpaid--is promising actors and Teamsters that his Jake Gyllenhaal-Jessica Biel comedy Nailed will wrap on schedule and pay everyone on time.

On Wednesday morning, his Capitol Films publicly assured (per the Hollywood Reporter, among others) that production could move through a June 22 wrap date. That's actually big news considering that while producer Mathew Rhodes says there has been "unbelievable camaraderie" on the shoot under David O. Russell Bergstein's scattered payment schedule has sparked three well-publicized interruptions.

While Bergstein's press releases say the company has had "solid, unsolicited interest from studios" on Nailed, the International Alliance of Theatrical & Stage Employees were ordered by union bosses not to show up at the South Carolina set twice in mid-May after their paychecks didn't arrive, and the Screen Actors Guild had ordered its members to stop working on May 9 after Capitol didn't meet its payroll.

Biel and Gyllenhaal, who lead the offbeat Kristin Gore script about a congressman whose secretary goes a bit nymphomaniac, had their salaries fully escrowed going into the shoot. Capitol, which had reportedly bounced 46 checks, put about $12 million into production before the snafus began, and hopes to finish the film of at around $25 million.

A comment on Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily site, which broke several reports on Bergstein's woes, claimed to be from a crew person on a 2005 film called .45 that nearly folded due to nonsupport, noting, "He's also a psychopath who sits in a room and stares people down....take him down, SAG."

For Bergstein watchers, it was a simple case of "Not again?"

His bid to merge his BTP Acquisitions company with Image Entertainment fell apart when hedge fund D. B. Zwirn, a major backer of the deal, collapsed and left him without key financing.

Image investors and management were so vexed that on a conference call with analysts, the company's CFO Jeff Framer said "murder" instead of "merger" when talking about the deal, which at the time had cost the company's investors about $50 million in stock value.

Thomas Kirchner, who manages the Pennsylvania Avenue Event-Driven Fund (PAEDX), and on the side writes a much-quoted blog called The Deal Sleuth, has pointed out the merger implosion helped send the stock down 43 percent to a five-year low ("It now trades at less than half the $4 that Lions Gate Entertainment was willing to pay before being outbid by Bergstein.")

When Zwirn shook, Kirchner said that "rather than working on the prompt closing of the Image Entertainment acquisition, Bergstein spent the last few months wheeling and dealing left and right."

Similarly, Bergstein's failure to properly capitalize indie production company Think Film since acquiring it for an estimated $25 million in October 2006 has left that unit skirting the financial abyss. (Several other pictures on the slate of Capitol Films, which he had acquired in January, 2006, are also victim to delays or wipe-outs due to scattershot funding.)

Then, on May 28, Boston-based Allied Advertising sued Bergstein and ThinkFilm in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging breach of contract, fraud and deceit, and unfair business practices.

Allied is seeking more than $4.1 million in unpaid bills and contracts, plus damages and interest. Think Film President Mark Urman emphasized his company's history of bringing the smarter projects to market, and cautioned that piling on by vendors and the press is only lessens the chance to keep the company moving forward with a shot at paying its debts.

Adding to Allied's agita was word that Bergstein planned to spend some days at the Cannes Film Festival taking meetings in the harbor on a yacht called the Pegasus. He ultimately didn't attend.

Still, Allied's suit alleged that "between January and May 2008, while most of the ThinkFilm debt to Allied was outstanding, defendants have gone on a lavish film licensing buying spree at various film festivals around the world, including a film about director Roman Polanski scheduled for release on the Home Box Office cable channel later in 2008."

Meantime, with Hollywood labor talks in a tenuous state, the Screen Actors Guild sent Bergstein a stern letter complaining of actors being stiffed by Capitol and his Capco Group not only on Nailed, but also Love Ranch and a Canadian production called Bad Meat. SAG judged the trend to be "a repeated and snowballing problem."

Bergstein's public persona resides somewhere between reclusive and flamboyant. Since 2004 he's been involved in about fifteen productions as a money-man producer. They've netted around $40 million all told, well under their production costs, with Before The Devil Knows You're Dead being the most prestigious.

Bergstein backed into his Hollywood phase by following his penchant for working with "distressed" companies. He began the millennium by making a seven-figure loan to Lebanese émigré Elie Samaha's Franchise Pictures (founded with the gains from his string of dry cleaning business in the 1980s and nightclubs in the 1990's) that left Bergstein one of numerous creditors when Franchise filed for bankruptcy.

It was around this time that the Los Angeles Business Journal described him pithily as "the vulture investor" and later quoted a Comerica bank executive saying Bergstein was "really intelligent and he got this business quickly."
Indeed, it was Comerica who stepped up this week with the financial reprieve for Nailed, but the Hollywood Reporter said the "some of the filmmakers aren't sure if the funds will last through postproduction."

Nailed, which aims to wrap in three weeks, will soon finish with Gyllenhaal, whose firm stop date is in just days, as he's got to go off to work on his next project.

And then Bergstein likely will be on to his next deal.