Gaghan = Thief?
Filed under: Drama, Thrillers, Warner Brothers, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, George Clooney
Uh oh. If a French screenwriter is telling the
truth, Stephen Gaghan might be about to find himself in some very hot
legal water. According to Stephanie Vergniault, whose case against Gaghan, Warner Brothers, and Section Eight (George Clooney and Steven
Soderbergh's production company) will be heard in a Paris court on Monday, "At least 15 to 20 scenes of [Syriana] -- the characters and how they develop,
creative elements, the entire structure -- [have] been lifted directly" from a screenplay she wrote and
copyrighted in 2004.The reason no one heard about this sooner is because Vergniault, who is "a specialist on geopolitics in the Middle East," has been living in Jordan, away from the latest Hollywood releases. She says she only saw the film after a friend in LA mentioned the similarities between it and her work and now, sister, she is pissed off.
Hmm. Do you think that best original screenplay nomination of Gaghan's will quietly disappear if the suit is proved to have merit?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-06-2006 @ 5:53PM
Ashley said...
Well how on earth would they prove it? Syriana was so hectic and busy and chopped-up they shouldn't even care about a few "copied" 15 second clips. (However, we all know how protective people can be over their (cough) original work, so any type of suit will probably just ruin the integrity of the film and Clooney as the director... such a shame.)
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4-13-2006 @ 5:38PM
Scotia said...
Clooney didn't direct. Gaghan did.
But, yeah, I'm thinking this is pretty baseless. It's not like Gaghan didn't do a ton of research on his own in addition to using Robert Baer's book as inspiration. It's also not like what's going on over there is necessarily a secret.
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