Twilight Mormon Stephenie Meyer is getting sued by 21-year-old writer Jordan Scott, who claims Meyer lifted parts of Breaking Dawn from Scott’s 2006 book The Nocturne (which Scott says she started writing when she was 15). So… Stephenie Meyer stole her ideas from a 15-year-old girl? Yeah, that sounds about right.
The letter from Scott’s lawyer claims there are a number of coincidences in the plotlines of the books, including a wedding, a post-wedding sex scene, a woman becoming sick because she’s carrying a child with “evil powers” and the death of a main character. …Scott also claims that “both the ideas and in many instances the text” of the two books are very similar.
…In Scott’s book, the description reads in part, “Her face was so pale, it was frightening; and there were beads of sweat pouring down her forehead. She couldn’t even stand, she was so weak. … She was violently ill, vomiting and scarcely able to catch her breath.”
In the allegedly similar scene in “Dawn,” Meyer writes: “Most of her dark hair was pulled away from her face into a messy knot, but a few strands stuck limply to her forehead and neck, to the sheen of sweat that covered her skin. There was something about her fingers and wrists that looked so fragile it was scary. She was sick. Very sick.” [via MTV, TMZ - You can also read the full complaint here, but check your brain at the door]
The main similarity I see is that both these chicks are horrible writers. “So fragile it was scary.” “So pale it was frightening.” Notice how neither actually describes the scene, only the half-assed idea the author wants to get across? I can’t help but imagine this as a Johnny Carson bit: Johnny: “She was so pale…” Audience: “HOW PALE WAS SHE?” Johnny: “She was SO PALE… it was SCARY!” “HOW SCARY WAS IT?” “It was VERY scary.”
In an epic display of chutzpah (that’s Jew talk for lettin’ your nuts swing), the producers of Pledge This, who put Paris Hilton in their movie back in ‘06, turned around and sued her for $8 million dollars, claiming she didn’t promote the film like she’d agreed to. She recently appeared in court, and it was every bit the sh-t show you’d imagine.
Hilton told the Florida district court that it was not her fault the film flopped. She said she spent two years promoting it before it was released, including two high-profile trips to the Cannes Film Festival.
If by promoting it you mean “collecting bags of free sh-t and posing for pictures,” then yeah, I’ll buy that argument.
Before giving evidence, Hilton, in a black dress and six-inch stilettos, gave a little wave to the judge. “I’ve never had a witness wave at me before,” chief district judge Federico Moreno said.
The socialite went on to say that she tried her best to promote the film. “If I have my name attached to something, I want it to be as big as it can be,” she said, adding: “It could have been a lot better if it was done more professionally. I wanted to do as well as possible.” She explained that at the time when she was being asked to promote the film for DVD sales, her schedule was full due to rehearsals for her next film, 2008’s The Hottie & The Nottie. Asked if that was a better movie, Hilton replied with a giggle: “It was really good”.
Mr Goldberg told the court that he pumped the final $600,000 (£370,000) from his receivership account into the completion of the film in the hope that Hilton’s star quality would reap rewards. He said her unwillingness to promote the movie after the premiere was the reason it lost money. “I said, ‘Just do one little thing and you’ll never hear from me again’. We had no support whatsoever,” he said. [Telegraph via Cinematical]
You thought hiring Paris Hilton would be a good business decision? Did you see her reality show? You know, the one whose entire premise was Paris getting hired to do stuff and then her not doing it? If this judge had any balls, his response would’ve been “Mr. Goldberg, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
The New York Daily News reports that Pauly Shore is upset that Brüno’s black-baby adoption is hogging all the press while Shore’s own Afridoption-themed film flies under the radar (despite, I must admit, looking pretty funny), and is even considering legal action.
There may be more trouble brewing for Sacha Baron Cohen. Comedian Pauly Shore is the latest person to threaten the “Bruno” star with legal action, claiming that an adopted-baby bit in the upcoming “Bruno” bears a striking resemblance to the trailer and tag line for his 2007 film, “Adopted.” Shore tells us he has contacted his attorney and is waiting to take legal action against Baron Cohen…
The tagline to which Shore seems to be referring (if he was even being serious, when they quote these things without context it’s hard to know if the person was taking a pensive drag on a rolled cigarette or humping a soda machine when they said it) is the “First there was Angelina, then there was Madonna, now there’s Pauly!” bit from the Adopted poster. Which is a lot like Brüno’s voiceover, “Angelina’s got one, Madonna’s got one, now Brüno’s got one,” at 1:30 of the Brüno trailer, which came out a couple months after the Adopted trailer. Still, it’s hard to prove someone ripped you off when your idea was pretty obvious to begin with. I think the obvious solution here is for each of them to train their respective black kid in a winner-take-all fight to the death. That’s how settled things back in the good old days.
Brüno’s lawyers have issued a response to the wildly-implausible-sounding lawsuit filed by the “waah, bruno paralyzed me” lady. And the nice thing about Sacha Cohen’s lawyers is that they do not F around.
Your clients’ claims are demonstrably and ludicrously false. The actual footage demonstrates that Mr. Baron Cohen never touched Ms. Olson, much less assaulted her. To the contrary, Ms. Olson assaulted Mr. Baron Cohen, grabbing his arms from behind and attempting to pull him out of a chair. The footage shows that Ms. Olson never ‘fell to the ground,’ nor was she injured in any way.
Putting aside the impossibility of a camera crew physically attacking Ms. Olson while at the same time filming her, the actual footage reveals that the number of crew members and other persons who attacked your client is zero. The footage reveals that your client’s allegations are a complete fabrication.
If you do not file a voluntary dismissal of the complaint with prejudice, and if you do not do so by this Monday, June 8, our clients will avail themselves of every legal remedy against you and your clients. [original letter, via E!]
I don’t usually like to side with highly-paid studio lawyers, but it’s nice to see people not just cave and pay a settlement to some butthole filing a frivolous lawsuit. I don’t have a lawyer but I find it still helps to refer to myself in the third person as ‘my client.’ My client thinks you’re being really mean. My client wishes you would reconsider. My client really didn’t mean any harm, he just thought you smelled nice is all. Now look what you’ve done, you’ve made my client cry.
A woman is suing Sacha Baron Cohen, claiming he started a “brawl” at a bingo hall in 2007 that left her paralyzed below the puffy old-lady fro. (Okay, I made that last part up).
Richelle Olson has sued Cohen, NBC Universal and others claiming they told her Brüno was a celeb and would appear and call numbers at the charity bingo game she ran for the elderly in Palmdale, CA. Olson was none too happy when she saw Brüno, whom she describes as an “extreme, outrageous, offensive caricature of a gay man dressed in sexually revealing clothing with an Austrian accent…”
Olson alleges Bruno used “vulgar and offensive language” and when she tried taking the mic from him, a “physical struggle ensued” and Cohen “offensively touched, pushed and battered” her, causing her to fall to the ground.
She then claims three cameramen and others rushed the stage … “where defendants attacked [her] for a period of one to five minutes to intentionally create a dramatic emotional response … while [they] recorded her humiliation and embarrassment.”
Aaaaand here’s where I call B.S. The cameramen filmed themselves attacking a downed old lady? Doubtful.
After the alleged assault was over, the suit says Olson went into another room where she was “sobbing uncontrollably” … then was rendered unconscious … “falling forward onto the thinly covered concrete slab, passing out and causing her to hit her head.”
