Quentin Tarantino faces a lawsuit in America after claims that his film Django Unchained breaches the copyright of an original screenplay called ÂFreedom by scriptwriters Oscar Colvin Jr and Torrance J Colvin.
The two scriptwriters have called out Tarantino as Âan immediate thief blatantly copying the screenplay ÂFreedom – a “uniquely original concept”. To support their claims, the lawsuit quotes Tarantino himself when he said ÂI steal from every single movie ever made in an interview with Empire magazine in 1994.
The scriptwriters claim they submitted ÂFreedom to the William Morris Agency, and that TarantinoÂs name was brought up in regards to potential directors. The lawsuit goes further claim Django bears “far more similarities” to ÂFreedom than it does to Sergio CorbucciÂs ÂDjangoÂ, which Tarantino claims is the inspiration for his film.
The script writers state that the: “Defendant Tarantino took the plot lines and main story of ÂFreedom and Tarantino-ized them.”
The suit has been filed in a federal court in Washington D.C., and asserts: “Before Django Freeman, there was an escaped slave named Jackson Freeman who desired to purchase his familyÂs freedom from a malevolent plantation owner. Before Dr Schultz, there was Samson, another white man, who would assist Mr Freeman in his efforts to rescue his loved one(s) from slavery.”
Tarantino holds an Oscar for Django Unchained for the best original screenplay in the 2013 Academy Awards.
For alleged copyright infringement, the suit seeks compensatory damages “In an amount in excess of hundreds of millions of dollars to be proven at trial.”
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