James Cameron‘s money making machine, AVATAR, this year’s best runner-up, is being sued for stealing source material for the eye- singeing 3D hit. But by whom? The makers of Ferngully: The Last Rainforest? Disney’s Pocahontas? Costner‘s Dances With Wolves? The estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs?
The latest claim actually comes from Vancouver restaurant owner, Emil Malak, who says that Avatar bears a striking resemblance to his screenplay, Terra Incognita, copyrighted in 1998, the Hollywood Reporter revealed.
According to the lawsuit, in Malak’s version, a living tree contains the collective memories of a tribe of indigenous species on an alien planet. The inhabitants are odd-looking with braided hair and many with tails. They are protecting their home planet from militaristic human invaders who want to mine precious minerals.
Malak claims that in October 2002, he sent the script to 20 studios accompanied with key pre-production art, including James Cameron‘s Lightstorm Entertainment with zero response. He never got a response.
Now he’s suing Cameron, Lightstorm and Twentieth Century Fox in a filing submitted in a British Columbia Supreme Court.
Fox promptly issued a statement: "James Cameron wrote the story for ‘Avatar’ two years before Mr. Malak claims he wrote his work, and therefore ‘Avatar’ cannot be based on ‘Terra Incognita.’ We are confident that the lawsuit will be decided in our favor."
"When a director/writer reportedly borrows liberally from hundreds of literary sources to "inspire" a tossed salad of a film, it’s very difficult legally for an individual to prove that their work is the sole one infringed upon," a legal analyst involved in Hollywood intellectual property cases told The ENQUIRER exclusively.
POP FYI: In a prior legal battle over James Cameron’s The Terminator, an acknowledgement was added to the video release — "Credit to the works of Harlan Ellison". Ellison had charged Cameron and the studio that The Terminator "borrowed heavily" from two scripts Ellison wrote for The Outer Limits TV series – "Demon With a Glass Hand" and "Soldier".
