Hot on the heels of Michael Easton (John) and Kristen Alderson (Starr) speaking out on the strange state of their GH status (and that of Roger Howarth, Todd), the company behind the reboots of their native OLTL (as well as AMC) has clarified the nature of their licensing agreement with ABC over the rights to the characters. It reads:
"Prospect Park released the following statement regarding its licensing agreement with 'All My Children' and 'One Life to Live.' In 2011, when Prospect Park decided to put everything on the line to reboot these shows, they lent characters to 'General Hospital' until shooting began for the new programs so that the characters could stay alive with the fans and also so that the actors could remain working. Everyone at ABC and on the production staff of "General Hospital" understood that this was a temporary arrangement until production started once again on 'One Life to Live.' Now the time has come to start production and Prospect Park needs to, once again, cast these characters including Llanview transplants Michael Easton (John) and Kristen Alderson (Starr). See statement below:
"Prospect Park understands that ‘General Hospital’ has featured Llanview transplants Michael Easton (John) and Kristen Alderson (Starr) among others while we arranged production of the new version of ‘One Life to Live.’ These characters, who we own under our agreement, are obviously essential to our production efforts, and a large reason we licensed the program. We also understand that legions of ‘General Hospital’ fans have grown to love these actors and characters in a short time. So even though we are paying ABC millions of dollars to license the shows, we have been, and continue to be willing to equally share the characters with ‘General Hospital’ and ABC. It's a win-win for the actors, the shows and fans, who love all of the shows and storylines. We hope to work out these agreements with ABC and the actors."
