David fought Goliath and Goliath won. A judge has ordered a writer, who claimed that “Alien vs. Predator” stole his story, to pay $40,000 to the studio for the trouble.
James Muller alleged that 20th Century Fox’s “Alien vs. Predator” had a striking similarity to his script for “The Lost Continent.”
For US District Judge Denny Chin, both scripts began with the tale of battle between extraterrestrial creatures, but the similarities apparently ended.
“The alleged similarities were ill-conceived,” said Chin.
The judge concluded that the writer’s claims were “frivolous and objectively unreasonable” because most of the “2000+ similarities” Muller had claimed were nothing more than the same themes that have been used in storytelling for years and years.
20th Century Fox estimated it had paid roughly $300,000 in lawyer fees to fight the copyright case and sought $150,000 with the “belief that the lesser award adequately serve the statutory goals of compensation and deterrence.”
However after going over Muller’s financial situation, the judge ordered Mulelr to pay just $40,000.