It’s a fox-eat-fox world out there, and Disney apparently has avoided becoming a meal. A California judge today threw out a big-money copyright lawsuit against its Oscar-winning toon Zootopia by the screenwriter of Total Recall, who had claimed that the studio ripped off his same-titled pitch.
Gary L. Goldman’s Esplanade Productions filed the suit March, three weeks after the film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. “They copied Goldman’s themes, settings, plot, characters, and dialogue – some virtually verbatim,” the copyright infringement and breach of implied-in-fact contract suit alleged, adding Goldman’s claim that he pitched the idea to executives at and connected to Disney in 2000 and 2009. “They copied Goldman’s title,Zootopia. They even copied Goldman’s character designs and artwork.”
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Disney fired back the same day, countering that the billion-dollar-grossing pic was its alone. “Mr. Goldman’s lawsuit is riddled with patently false allegations,” a Disney spokesperson told Deadline then. “It is an unprincipled attempt to lay claim to a successful film he didn’t create, and we will vigorously defend against it in court.”
Looks now like it won’t have to. This morning, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Fitzgerald held that Goldman didn’t present enough evidence of infringement.
“Esplanade alleges that Goldman twice shared a synopsis and treatment for the movie Looney, along with his ideas for a larger franchise called Zootopia, with Disney agents and executives,” Fitzgerald wrote (read the ruling here). “The parties now dispute whether Goldman’s materials are sufficiently similar to the Disney film to support an action for copyright infringement. But despite both parties’ urging, the Court cannot engage in a copying analysis on the merits because Esplanade failed either to attach the allegedly infringed materials to the Complaint, or to describe them in sufficient detail to permit the requested analysis. In this action, as in every action, it is the plaintiff’s obligation to allege sufficient facts, if proved true, to permit a jury to rule in the plaintiff’s favor. Esplanade has not met that burden here.
Among the Zootopia similarities that Goldman had alleged were the character designs (see them below). ”The differences between the character designs outnumber the similarities,” Fitzgerald wrote in dismissing the case. “And the animation style itself is very different between the two sets of characters: whereas the Disney characters are typically cute and appealing, [Goldman’s] characters evoke a darker, seedier aesthetic.”
Judge for yourself:
Look at all these morons in the comments. Yes, Disney is a company and like all companies, it’s not going to be perfect. But give up already; they’re in the right, here.
Also, it’s a GOOD thing that Goldman’s delusions weren’t even paid lip service by the judicial system. Just look at the meager ‘evidence’ he has. He actually has the gall to think he’s even in the same league as the Zootopia stuff, which looks nothing like his work.
This happens practically EVERY TIME a movie is loved, awarded, acclaimed, and makes over a billion dollars like Zootopia did! It’s happened with practically every single studio and generally a studio settles out of court. This time however it was fought in court and was thrown out by a federal judge! That should speak volumes that this lacked any legal merit!
Oh yes, those character designs are sooooooo identical.
Go Disney 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
People are pretty foolish to believe this film was “stolen”. I said several times this wouldn’t go anywhere and would likely be thrown out, well here you go! Don’t look for a whole lot to come of the Inside Out lawsuit against Pixar also!
Funny how this always show up AFTER A film is critically acclaimed, makes a billion and wins a slew of awards!
Moron that is the only time you can file a lawsuit such as this after the damage to your creation has been done. Disney is obviously bribing all these judges the same way all the other studios have been bribing judges. Every single lawsuit gets tossed out and the D.A. should investigate and prosecute so should the FBI there is clear corruption with under the table cash payments being made to judges in Los Angeles. That is the only way to explain all these court victories for the studios. They conspired to bribe judges and it needs to be exposed. This is a good case to do that but I won’t be surprised if the studios bribe the FBI also. They steal ideas and stories all the time and they get away with it. Zootopia is obviously stolen read the lawsuit if you doubt it.
Hey pal! How about you cool it with the insults! And while your at it remove that aluminum foil hat you’re wearing as I believe it’s cutting off the blood flow to your brain! Avatar and Frozen both shared in that they were both films that did extremely well both were sued by someone because of copyright and both were thrown out! If you seriously believe this isn’t anything more than someone attempting this for a paycheck and attention I’ve got a island to sell you! Lawsuit like these are thrown out because they’re FAKE and LACK MERIT anyone at any point in time after a film is released can make up something and say they had the idea first! It isn’t that hard and it has nothing at all to do with bribery of FEDERAL judges!