Did Cameron steal Avatar?
Former employee sues the director over film plot.
LOS ANGELES:
Avatar director James Cameron has been hit with a lawsuit by a writer who claims that the plot for the hit sci-fi movie was lifted from his own project. In the suit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on December 8, Eric Ryder claims that he entered into an agreement with Cameron’s production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, to develop a movie based on his story KRZ 2068. According to the suit, the project was envisioned as “an environmentally themed 3D epic about a corporation’s colonisation and plundering of a distant moon’s lush and wondrous natural setting.”
After working on the project for nearly two years, Ryder alleges, Lightstorm put an end to it, explaining that “No one would be interested in an environmentally themed science fiction feature film.” Shortly after, the suit says, Lightstorm began work on Avatar, which Ryder says, “liberally and substantially uses material that fell within the agreement”.
According to the suit, Ryder’s story involved a protagonist who’s sent to the moon of a distant planet by an Earth-based mining corporation. Ryder’s agreement with Lightstorm stipulated that material from the project wouldn’t be used without Ryder “sharing in the commercial receipts and the writer or producer credits”.
Claiming breach of implied contract, fraud and deceit, negligent misrepresentation and other infractions, Ryder is seeking unspecified contract damages, tort damages, punitive damages and that he be awarded the profits “that defendants obtained from their wrongful acts.”
Given the billions of dollars that Avatar pulled in worldwide, this could be pretty substantial. Attempts to reach Cameron’s attorney and Lightstorm were unsuccessful.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 10th, 2011.
Avatar director James Cameron has been hit with a lawsuit by a writer who claims that the plot for the hit sci-fi movie was lifted from his own project. In the suit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on December 8, Eric Ryder claims that he entered into an agreement with Cameron’s production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, to develop a movie based on his story KRZ 2068. According to the suit, the project was envisioned as “an environmentally themed 3D epic about a corporation’s colonisation and plundering of a distant moon’s lush and wondrous natural setting.”
After working on the project for nearly two years, Ryder alleges, Lightstorm put an end to it, explaining that “No one would be interested in an environmentally themed science fiction feature film.” Shortly after, the suit says, Lightstorm began work on Avatar, which Ryder says, “liberally and substantially uses material that fell within the agreement”.
According to the suit, Ryder’s story involved a protagonist who’s sent to the moon of a distant planet by an Earth-based mining corporation. Ryder’s agreement with Lightstorm stipulated that material from the project wouldn’t be used without Ryder “sharing in the commercial receipts and the writer or producer credits”.
Claiming breach of implied contract, fraud and deceit, negligent misrepresentation and other infractions, Ryder is seeking unspecified contract damages, tort damages, punitive damages and that he be awarded the profits “that defendants obtained from their wrongful acts.”
Given the billions of dollars that Avatar pulled in worldwide, this could be pretty substantial. Attempts to reach Cameron’s attorney and Lightstorm were unsuccessful.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 10th, 2011.