A copyright lawsuit alleging that the Oscar winner stole a Pulitzer Prize winning author was revived last year by an appeals court. Now comes a dismissal and a statement that the plagiarism allegations were “unfounded”.
Producers of The shape of the water will no longer have to face a copyright lawsuit that claims that Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning film infringed on the work of Pulitzer Prize author Paul Zindel. On Friday, Disney units from Fox, Guillermo del Toro and other defendants filed court documents indicating that the parties to the dispute reached an agreement to close the case.
When contacted about the development, a Searchlight spokesman (one of the co-defendants) released the following testimony: “David Zindel, son of Paul Zindel, author of Let me hear you whisper, recognizes, based on confidential information obtained during the litigation process, that its plagiarism allegations are unfounded. He recognizes Guillermo del Toro as the true creator of The shape of the water. Any similarity between the two works is purely coincidental. “
Zindel’s lawyer did not respond to the opportunity to comment.
The lawsuit gained international attention when it was filed in February 2018. Zindel’s family went to court shortly before the Oscar vote ended that year, and the claim that Guillermo del Toro’s film was substantially similar to Let me hear you whisper triggered a legal battle in which the judges analyzed two works in which the love for a creature trapped in a science center had a strong influence.
It didn’t take long for a district judge to dismiss the case initially. A few months after the lawsuit was opened, United States District Court judge Percy Anderson wrote: “Although the play and the film share the basic premise of an official at a science facility who decides to release a creature subjected to scientific experiments , this concept is also general to be protected. “
But last June, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the judge was too hasty. According to a memorandum of opinion at the time, “Although both works were presented correctly to the district court, additional evidence, including expert testimony, would assist in the objective literary analysis necessary to determine the extent and qualitative importance of the similarities that Zindel identified in the expressive elements of the works, particularly the plausibly alleged shared sequence of the plot. “
This week, both sides were scheduled to submit expert reports and witness assignments. A trial was scheduled for July. Instead, the case is being closed. Both sides will bear their own legal expenses.
For legal insiders, the Water form litigation is also a postscript for another high-profile case in the entertainment industry from a decade ago – the long war over Superman. Marc Toberoff, who represented the Zindel family, has already represented Superman co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in an attempt to end a copyright grant to Warner Bros. Superman The studio, in turn, was represented by Daniel Petrocelli, whose showcase winning move in that old case was to claim that Toberoff had tortured business. After Water form litigation was revived by the 9th Circuit, Petrocelli took over Fox’s defense of Loeb & Loeb – presenting a rematch between the two lawyers. There will also be no trial in this case.