Saturday, September 27, 2003
CAST OF CHARACTERS: Somebody wake up Rob T, since this story's right in his backyard. A Hollywood producer and his screenwriter partner are suing 20th Century Fox over accusations that Fox stole their idea and turned it into The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Their lawsuit is asking for $100 million dollars in damages, which is $34 mil more than the film actually grossed in wide release.
If this was all there was to it, it wouldn't rate a spot on my list, but there's more; the idea that Gentlemen was adapted from Alan Moore's graphic novel doesn't throw a wrench into the duo's suit, because he was obviously in on it from the start. Mr. Moore was fed the idea by Fox, and in an elaborate conspiracy, published his comic book for no other reason than to provide a "smokescreen" for the plagiarized movie script.
This is what's so fun about conspiracy theories. If something doesn't fit, it can be made to fit. Since there was no other way Moore could've seen the unproduced script while he was developing his graphic novel, he had to be in on it. The idea that having a group of public domain literary characters getting together to solve crimes might have occurred to someone else and the execution was what sold Fox on Moore's take instead of theirs is obviously a foreign concept to our subjects.
This case should be easy to dismiss just from the evidence of Mr. Moore's notebooks. However, the most interesting part is about a case Fox lost:
Fox has been accused of pilfering screenplays before. In March 2001, a small Detroit publishing firm won a multimillion-dollar verdict against Fox after a Michigan jury agreed the movie studio plagiarized the script of a school teacher to make its holiday film "Jingle All the Way," which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I'm stunned I missed this one. I can picture the scene of the schoolteacher running in a dither from the multiplex, grasping his/her head from the implications of what just was flung onto the screen. Finally, they reach the teacherly abode, consumed by a dizzy spell brought on by big-money duplicity. "My idea! Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad STOLE MY BRILLIANT IDEA! I can understand Arnold doing that, but I TRUSTED YOU, SIIIIIINBAAAAAAAD!" Then the teacher collapses sobbing on the ground among a pile of unproduced family movie screenplays, most of which involve children learning life lessons from cantankerous adults, cute animals, or supermodels.
Obviously that one was for real. Who would claim a piece of that movie if it wasn't true?
If this was all there was to it, it wouldn't rate a spot on my list, but there's more; the idea that Gentlemen was adapted from Alan Moore's graphic novel doesn't throw a wrench into the duo's suit, because he was obviously in on it from the start. Mr. Moore was fed the idea by Fox, and in an elaborate conspiracy, published his comic book for no other reason than to provide a "smokescreen" for the plagiarized movie script.
This is what's so fun about conspiracy theories. If something doesn't fit, it can be made to fit. Since there was no other way Moore could've seen the unproduced script while he was developing his graphic novel, he had to be in on it. The idea that having a group of public domain literary characters getting together to solve crimes might have occurred to someone else and the execution was what sold Fox on Moore's take instead of theirs is obviously a foreign concept to our subjects.
This case should be easy to dismiss just from the evidence of Mr. Moore's notebooks. However, the most interesting part is about a case Fox lost:
Fox has been accused of pilfering screenplays before. In March 2001, a small Detroit publishing firm won a multimillion-dollar verdict against Fox after a Michigan jury agreed the movie studio plagiarized the script of a school teacher to make its holiday film "Jingle All the Way," which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I'm stunned I missed this one. I can picture the scene of the schoolteacher running in a dither from the multiplex, grasping his/her head from the implications of what just was flung onto the screen. Finally, they reach the teacherly abode, consumed by a dizzy spell brought on by big-money duplicity. "My idea! Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad STOLE MY BRILLIANT IDEA! I can understand Arnold doing that, but I TRUSTED YOU, SIIIIIINBAAAAAAAD!" Then the teacher collapses sobbing on the ground among a pile of unproduced family movie screenplays, most of which involve children learning life lessons from cantankerous adults, cute animals, or supermodels.
Obviously that one was for real. Who would claim a piece of that movie if it wasn't true?
|| Eric 2:49 PM#
