It looks like Terminator is under attack again in the courts, this time from an Australian couple who claim they wrote the idea of the shape shifting creature…yeah, because I’ve never heard of that in any other movie. From Hollywood Reporter.
A federal appeals court panel ruled Monday that an Australian couple can proceed with a lawsuit that alleges their idea for a shape-shifting creature was wrongly used in the film “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” Filia and Constantinos Kourtis claim that they came up with the character in 1987 for a movie called “The Minotaur.” The couple hired a writer, William Green, to craft a screenplay, and they allege that the screenplay was shared with James Cameron
Actually, isn’t interesting that you never hear of anyone sueing a direct to video\DVD movie for copying of ideas? Also that this is only being heard about now, so long after the release of Terminator 2? Are these couple only going after this movie and no other movie that features a shape shifter? I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but it does strike me that if I felt my ideas had been stolen on a movie I’d be straight after it, especially such a big blockbuster as T2, how could you miss it?
What do you think, are these claims just for status, money and\or advertising, or do you think there really is a lot of copyright infringement going on and we just don’t hear about the smaller movie claims?