When morons sue... LXG (1 Viewer)

[JustinCleveland]

Man sues studio over LXG

Yeah... sue the movie makers, even though it was a comic book 5 years ago, and not sue the writers...

When you're going to file a frivilous lawsuit, do your homework.

 

[BrianB]

No, no, Justin, you're forgetting that Fox got the comic book written as a smokescreen so they could rip off these guys!

 

[Damin J Toell]

Whatever else he is, Larry Cohen is no moron...

DJ

 

[Chad R]

For trying to take credit for that mess? Sure seems like a moron to me. Especially as he cites many of the abusrd changes (dorian Grey as an invulnerable immortal?) from the graphic novel as his original ideas.

 

[Ricardo C]

Gotta go with "Moron" on this one.

So the guy had a similar idea. n the end, the flick was done based on Moore's comic. Larry, somehow deal with the idea that another writer had an idea similar to yours, and he actually did something with it.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

You could always argue that Alan Moore stole the diea, btu frankly the guy's got credibility out the wazoo and I'm not sure how he would have heard about it.

 

[Krystian C]

Definite moron. How can you file a lawsuite suing for money than the movie made?? Would he have lost 100 million? Hell no! Out of the 66mil it did make, the studio and production must have take up the better part of 50 mil. So even if they had have used Cohen's ides, he would have been out no more that 10 million. Gotta love Hollywood math. You guys screwed me for 10 mil, so you owe me 100 mil.

 

[david stark]

Definite moron. How can you file a lawsuite suing for money than the movie made??

he could always claim that the film was so bad that any chance he has of making a film with his original idea has gone, and since he would have done a bang up job he would have made 100 million. dodgy at best, but then again so are loads of cases that win.

 

[Damin J Toell]

So the guy had a similar idea. n the end, the flick was done based on Moore's comic. Larry, somehow deal with the idea that another writer had an idea similar to yours, and he actually did something with it.

And Fox knew about Cohen's similar idea, and appears to have knowingly made the film, anyway. When you know of someone else's original idea (assuming the concept is a copyrightable one - given a certain level of specificity, it likely is) and make something similar, that's called copyright infringement. If the project had happened without there being any way of anyone involved knowing about Cohen's pitch, there would be no infringement. That Fox knew of Cohen's pitch, however, actually gives Cohen a pretty decent argument.

At least one other lawsuit involving Larry Cohen, Effects Associates v. Cohen (9th Cir. 1990) (although he was the one being sued for copyright infringement that time) helped develop an otherwise unclear area of the US Copyright Act: whether a unwritten copyright license could be valid. (Answer: it could, but it would be an impliedly non-exclusive license.)

DJ

 

[Seth Paxton]

They won't win but I can slightly understand the worry. Certainly if you were to go pitch an idea and then see it on screen 5 years after being rejected you would be very uptight. The timing here isn't as strong and obviously the comic came out some 6 years later itself even before the film.

Of course plenty of projects have been kicked around and shelved for many, many years before getting done.


My only beef with the suit from a "moron" standpoint is the $100m, and not because of how much the film made. That has nothing to do with it IMO. It seems rather unlikely that they would have received points on the film, so even if it did LOTR type money they weren't going to be getting $100m out of the deal.

It seems much more likely that they might have been given a standard spec script fee at the time (93) which I don't know the numbers on, but I would put it at $1m at the very max I think (more like $100K or something). Even if they then got producers credit as well it still wouldn't be exec production, so again they likely wouldn't see some big chunk of the pie.

Of course then $100m is probably the jumping off point for "negotiations".


Side note: I have one story idea that I've kicked around since 89. Unfortunately at this point the pitch for it sounds a bit like The Matrix. It's not the same at all really, but the first reaction to a pitch for it would likely be to see a similarity. The point being - I didn't pitch it to anyone who could have ripped me off at all, someone just thought of some similar ideas while I sat on my hands and did nothing with my own idea, so obviously writers think of similar things all the time.

Of course if I had pitched it to the Wach Bros and then 4 years later...and that's why I always take these "bullshit" suits with at least a little bit of sympathy to the person suing. Bring out the facts and if it's totally unfounded then the court system should be able to fine them for a wasteful, pointless suit (if only :frowning: ).

BTW, losing the suit doesn't inherently make it pointless. It could be a reasonable suit and still not seen has having enough legal connection to warrant winning damages. There is a whole range of "losing", from close to laughed out of the courtroom.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't read the comic, but everything I have read says that Dorian Grey isn't in the comic book. And in the Oscar Wilde book, I don't think there's anything about him being immortal, at least certainly not to the extent of surviving a gunfire attack like the film shows.

If I'm right and Dorian Grey isn't in the comic, that kind of addition (along with the immortality) seems to me to be enough to suggest someone surely had the Cast Of Characters in mind when they made the many changes to the comic book.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I don't think Larry Cohen is alleging they ripped off his cast of characters, just the basic concept. As it can be demonstrated this was arrived at independently of his work, I don't think he has much of a case.

 

[Damin J Toell]

As it can be demonstrated this was arrived at independently of his work, I don't think he has much of a case.

The graphic novel may have been arrived at independently (although it will be interesting to see Cohen's evidence that it wasn't, especially if Fox was making movie adaptation announcements prior to its publication), but Fox's movie adaptation wasn't. It's a tricky claim, to be sure, but not necessarily a bad one. If Fox can get away with knowing of Cohen's pitch and deciding to use Moore's graphic novel as the basis for a film instead, then any studio can have a screenwriter "independently" write a script that steals a concept they were pitched elsewhere without any worries. That doesn't seem to be a particularly pleasing outcome. Then again, ruling in Cohen's favor might also prevent a studio from making a film adaptation of a published work that, while created independently, is very similar to a concept they were pitched elsewhere.

I can't wait to see how it turns out, assuming it isn't settled before trial.

DJ

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Plus this whoel thing is begging the question of whether the idea was copyrightable in the first place. The idea of teaming up various public-domain literary figures absent more specifics is likely too vague.