An amended complaint by a Truman Capote entity seeks damages after Paramount circulated a script for a new film.
A lawsuit filed by Truman Capote’s legal heir against Paramount Pictures over adaptation rights for Breakfast at Tiffany’s continues to evolve. The studio now faces a $ 20 million copyright claim only based on a script that Paramount executives released internally.
The litigation started in the Los Angeles Superior Court as a vehicle to determine whether the reset and sequence rights were reverted to a Capote entity. Paramount then referred the case to the federal court, where the background to the dispute – a Supreme Court decision and subsequent negotiation between the parties – was discussed in more detail. Finally, a federal judge rejected a motion to return the case to the state court.
Given that the case is now pending in federal court, Alan Schwartz, the administrator of a charity Truman Capote, is advancing a new copyright claim that arises from how Paramount circled a script with the intention of turning it into a resource and sell it to a streaming platform. The project remains unproduced; however, Schwartz claims in an amended complaint that, because of the infraction, his side has already been damaged in the amount of at least $ 20 million. Instead, the charity is eyeing a television series and has received several bids, but presumably had trouble going ahead while Paramount claims the rights. The amended complaint also seeks to recover profits attributable to the infringement, which Schwartz “expects” to be more than $ 50 million.
On Friday, the judge signed an agreement between the parties to allow the amended complaint to be filed. Both sides also agreed that neither will be able to ask for legal fees at the trial.