Zootopia, that won the Golden Globe and Oscar
earlier this year for best animation film is his idea, not Disney’s, says Gary
L. Goldman who has filed a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement, arguing
that “Disney Zootopia
is substantially similar to the Goldman Zootopia”
in
a 37-page court filing.
In the
eye-popping court papers, Goldman alleges that Disney copied not just his Zootopia film name for its
film, but also its “themes, settings, plot,
characters, and dialogue – some virtually verbatim” after he pitched his Zootopia
idea to Disney in 2000 and again in 2009 and got rejected both times.
Goldman, a veteran
screenwriter who wrote the scripts for films like Total Recall, says
Disney even copied his character designs and artwork, and includes striking
graphics to show how Zootopia’s main characters mirror the characters he
created.
Disney in a statement
says Gary L. Goldman’s lawsuit “is riddled with patently false allegations. It
is an unprincipled attempt to lay claim to a successful film he didn’t create,
and we will vigorously defend against it in court.”
In his court papers,
Goldman goes through the alleged copyright infrigements one by one and how his
Zootopia characters are nearly identical to Disney’s Zootopia.
Goldman’s script for
instance has a squirrel named Mimi – cute and optimistic – who is discriminated
against. Disney’s Zootopia has Judy, the bunny cop.
Goldman’s tall, horned
Asian mountain animal running a club he named Max is called Yax in Disney’s
Zootopia and is the same type of animal, and also running a club.
He does this for all of
the main characters and shows how their attributes are the same as those of the
characters of Disney’s Zootopia.
Same setting, themes,
story, poses, characters
Goldman says besides
copying his word “Zootopia” – a portmanteau that he came up with – even even
dialogue from his treatment shows up almost verbatim in Disney’s Zootopia.
In Goldman’s version a
characters says: “If you want to be an elephant, you can be an elephant.” In
Disney’s version, Judy says: “You wanna be an elephant when you grow up? You be
an elephant. Because this is Zootopia. Anyone can be anything”.
“Each of the works
addresses the issue of whether, in a diverse society as represented by the
different species of Zootopia, one can be anything he or she wants to be.”
“A corollary theme is
whether, in order to do so, one can overcome not only the prejudices inherent
in a diverse society as represented by Zootopia, but also the prejudices within
oneself as a member of such a society,” says Goldman’s lawsuit.
Goldman explains how the
settings of the two Zootopia’s are the same and even the story.
“Artwork in the two Zootopias
has the same subject matter and substantially similar appearance, including
shapes, colours, body structures, poses and facial expressions of the animal
characters”.
“Both works begin with
young, uncool heroes who live in small towns with their parents. The heroes
work to achieve a career dream that their parents specifically discourage. They
go to academies where they excel, achieve recognition for their work, and earn
the opportunity to go to the big city for their dream jobs.”
“In the big city, the
heroes come up against strong, powerful and entrenched bosses who want to
maintain control over the heroes".
Goldman continues to
detail the similar narrative structures between the two Zootopias and
says the “plot structure and these events involve and are driven by similar
themes and characters, and they are used in similar ways to express similar
themes”.