Warner alleges banks' footage held hostage.

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. has sued an advertising agency, alleging that the firm withheld newly made videotapes of Tyra Banks and breached a contract to promote her new TV show.

In a suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Warner, a division of Time Warner Inc., has accused the Torrance office of Saatchi & Saatchi North America Inc. of marking up production costs on a $300,000 contract to provide promotional materials for the one-hour talk show featuring the supermodel.

The materials, which included 12 to 16 television spots and an Internet campaign, were part of a March agreement that called for Warner to pay five installments of $59,000 each, or $295,000. The studio also agreed to pay additional "production and out of pocket costs" that Saatchi would pass along for written authorization "with no agency commission or markup," according to the suit.

On May 18, Saatchi told Warner that the production estimate would be close to $575,000, which included $418,000 for Area 51, the production subcontractor to Saatchi. Warner paid $118,000 toward the base contract and $209.000 for additional production costs, but refused to pay any more, complaining that the cost included a 20 percent markup.

Later that month, Saatchi arranged the first of three days of shoots for the TV spots, which Warner claims did not go as planned. Warner alleges in its suit that Banks was shot talking in a beauty shop with an actor, not a "real person," as the studio had requested. Also, the creative director on the shoot left that morning, leaving a "lack of direction and expertise in the remaining crew members," the suit states.

In response, two days later Warner cut the crew to two Saatchi employees, replaced the director and shot the spots with its own executives. After Warner refused to pay the full $575,000, Saatchi withheld the footage, according to the suit.

Warner, which said it sold the show to 90 percent of the television markets in the United States, promised the stations it would provide promotional materials as soon as possible. In particular, Warner promised to provide them during the week of June 6 to the Fox Station Group, a conglomerate of 35 stations.