Dispute over compensation in the Post Production Phase of a Documentary

Hi there,

I am a Director and Film Maker and have been working with a comic. They perform Stand Up Comedy all over the country. I've been a videographer on several of their performances and recently got the idea to make a documentary style stand up special. I've filmed and produced the elements that are off stage and have edited it in my unique style to which many that have watched it have commented on that unique style.

We've talked about fair compensation as we are in talks with big names to sell to a streaming service and were aligned. But their agents have spoken with them and changed their mind. Instead they want to pay me an editing fee. It's their performance, their written jokes and they produced some of the footage. I have directed, produced and edited all of the footage to have the unique style that makes it what it is. I feel as though without me this project would not be what it is and I deserve more than a measly little freelance fee as this is probably going to be sold to a big name streamer while the agents who advised against this project in the first place now want to take a larger piece of the pie.

At this point I feel like handing over all of the underlying footage and not the project file which includes all of my edits.

I'm not looking for legal advice per se but if anyone has been in a similar situation if they could share some advice based on their personal experience. How should I proceed?