kierthos | Okay, check this shit out

Lawsuit over "Pirates of the Caribbean"

This guy claims that beginning in the 1980s, he "created and wrote a number of original works including drawings, screenplays, outlines, blueprints, storyboards and other original materials" for what he termed a "Super Natural Pirate Movie."

Okay, sure, it's possible, and even likely that he did such work. Hey, it's often been said (especially with regard to the entertainment industry) that there are no original ideas. I refer you to the number of remakes in movies and songs. (Side note: A Miami Vice movie? WTF? Who green-lighted that piece of shit?)

Here's the thing. The first PotC movie came out in 2003. It is now, unless I am horribly fucked up on big red pills, 2006. That's a three year gap, folks. Was this guy trapped on a deserted island (with rum?) the whole time?

Okay, knowing a little something (very little) about the way lawsuits work, I can imagine that he may have started threatening a lawsuit shortly after the first movie, and it's only because the second one is out that the story is getting any press. (Well, that, and he's actually filed a lawsuit and an injunction.)

Still, Disney has bigger and badder lawyers. And since PotC 2 has already made, what, 170 million, I can't see them even thinking about stopping that money-train without a fight.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

wow...yea...wtf.

I can actually understand if he jotted down some notes/screenplay about something akin/similiar to Pirates..(hell back in 99 I wrote a D-10 system based on WW's that dealt with Angels and Demons, and Demon The Fallen had some very similiar themes, even though none of the writers saw my work..)

But....to this guy,

Lay of the crack, step away...Pirates is not a meal/money ticket..the lawyers will eat you up and hang you out to dry...

I quote Red "Dumbass"

Yeah, the lawyers are going to eat him alive.

But like I said, the thing that really gets me is that I don't recall hearing a thing about this when the first movie came out. I mean, you'd think this would have been Priority #1 for this guy. I'm not claiming that I would have 100% for sure heard of the lawsuit, but, hell, given that the Sony vs. White Wolf lawsuit (over the movie Underworld) got a decent bit of online press coverage, as well as the Warner Bros. & Wachowski brothers vs. Sophia Stewart case (over the movie The Matrix)...

Hell, who knows. He's almost certainly got something resembling a case, but he's probably hoping for a quick buck rather then actually trying to shut down the movie/toy line/clothing line/etc.

I agree..

I didnt hear anything either when Curse came out and I think this would have been at least in SOME headlines at the time..

and I also agree, a quick buck..

Yeah, nothing sells like scandal. Like I pointed out below, "Coming to America" was a movie that had a lawsuit result from it, because it was based on an optioned screenplay, and no credit or payment was initially made. And that movie wasn't a blockbuster by any means.

PotC? 653 million dollars, worldwide. (I believe that's just ticket sales, but it might count VHS/DVD sales.)
PotC 2? 55.8 million on the opening day. Over 135 million in the opening weekend. Already estimated at 262 million worldwide.

Nice timing for a lawsuit. Deep pockets might just settle and be done with it.

The key thing in this kind of lawsuit will be if anyone at Disney / the PotC creative teams saw his work.

If he can prove that connection, he might have enough of a case where he can get some money. Otherwise, probably not a chance in hell.

The reason he might get some money is Disney will do a cost risk analysis. If paying him 5 mill is cheaper than defending themselves in court / bad press, then they'll do it.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, didn't something similar happen with that Eddie Murphy movie "Coming to America"? Although, in that case, Paramount (who made "Coming to America") had optioned the script, so they were really, really, really stupid in stealing the idea.

Given you have access to good printing facilities, would you be interested in testing out my cardgame old chap? You can give me a better idea of the print quality people would be able to get hold of the game at if they got it done 'professionally' and how much it would cost them.

Sure, I'd be willing to give it a look-see. What file format do you have it in? (If you say Quark Express, I keel you.) We can work with pretty much any file format, but our preferred ones are PDF or Publisher files, hell... Word Documents if you got nothing else...

PDF.
E-mail me direct and I'll give you the link.

grim AT postmort DOT demon DOT co DOT uk

You should get an e-mail from me in about thirty minutes to an hour and a half from now. Depends on if I go to IHOP for breakfast after work or not. (Mmmm... grits...)

Okay, check this shit out

wow

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