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If director Andrew Niccol and New Regency’s Justin Timberlake thriller In Time is based on a pilfered idea, as is claimed in a copyright suit filed yesterday in L.A. federal court, they may have picked on the wrong guy. At the wrong time. The suit was brought by science fiction author Harlan Ellison, who says that the movie is too close to his 1965 short story ”Repent, Harlequin! 
Said the Ticktockman” and wants its scheduled Oct. 28 release blocked. A copyright curmudgeon, Ellison has a track record of filing high-profile copyright cases. He received an acknowledgment credit after he sued over The Terminator, claiming it was based on two Outer Limits episodes her wrote. And according to the suit, after years of waiting, Ellison recently had a third party write an adaptation of the book and was preparing to approach the studios with it. Ellison’s suit alleges plot and character parallels, and he apparently isn’t the only one who sees similarities. The author notes in his suit that critic Richard Roeper in his Fall Movie Preview, says that the film “is based on a short story by the great Harlan Ellison.” In addition to blocking the film’s release, Ellison is seeking compensatory damages.
Copyright Curmudgeon Harlan Ellison Sues To Halt Release Of New Regency’s ‘In Time’
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Let this serve as a lesson to aspiring screenwriters, working directors, and executives alike:
Never read or watch anything by Harlan Ellison. Ever.
No, read and appreciate everything written by Harlan Ellison. He’s brilliant.
Yes, don’t read a fantastic author. You’re a genius.
But, do, clearly rip off his work. The number of rip offs from his short story in this film are astounding, including the name of a main character.
Let this serve as a lesson to aspiring screenwriters, working directors, and executives alike: if you rip someone off they will sue you. Niccol should be ashamed of himself for such a blatant copy – how far this man has fallen since GATTACA.
I saw that outer limits terminator episode. Umh, Like the matrix writers I’m sure they were inspired etc.
If you support the WGA, you have to support the writer. After all the Godfather was unpublished before the rights were bought.
Screw you, jerk! Hope your work gets ripped off someday and you’re not compensated for it. Of course that’s assuming you’re capable of creating anything, let alone something worthy of being copied or plagiarized.
Sure, the minute some egocentric agent, executive or corporation feels they’ve been cheated in even the slightest, they make sure everyone “feels their pain”. But, let an artist of any kind stand up for their rights and their work in any way, and they get shouted down as a “troublemaker”. Typical double-standard. Progress doesn’t have to occur at the cost of people’s rights and the rule of law, the current anarchic free market system be damned. GO HARLAN! DOWN WITH THE NEANDERTHALS AND VISIGOTHS!
I’m confused by your advice. If they take it and stop reading anything from Ellison where then would they ever be able to steal their ideas from and would Hollywood ever again be able to produce anything that wasn’t a flat out remake?
Doubtful as with the passage of time it’s becoming ever more clear that Hollywood is utterly bankrupt when it comes to originality.
He doesn’t have a history of filing lawsuits, genius. He has a history of WINNING them.
correction: he gets paid to drop the suit. funny enough, we discussed him in class today. he sues everything and everyone; AOL, really? wtf?
Why wait so long to come forth?
You wait until the party you’re suing has sunk as much money as humanly possible into the product, and that’s when you file. Because at that point they’ve invested so much, they’re going to want to settle with you at any cost because otherwise they lose the entire cost of the production (and in this case marketing). And whatever Ellison is asking, it’s not $50 million (that’s an arbitrary number, I have no idea how much is behind IN TIME).
Boiled down: You wait so long because it’s the best strategic move to guarantee you a victory/windfall.
I understand. It is just sad to see how morally corrupt business is. I understand that this is the where it’s at, but my naivete wishes that humans weren’t just a cut above the intelligence of monkeys and that Hollywood was not so consummately invested in moral turpitude.
It starts with the individual. The best you can do besides wish is to be be the best, most honorable person you can be.
To maximize $ when he wins. It’ll be much easier to calculate damages and actually get paid when there’s a concrete film to pin things on. If he comes forward too soon, maybe the studio finds a way to bury the movie or minimize the money they have to pay out somehow. Besides, if he found out about it too far into the process of making the film, might as well let them finish because they’re going to do it anyway. Then they don’t have that much more time to prep their side of the legal argument. They’ll have spent money trying to make it a success, completely oblivious to the impending lawsuit. I do wonder which came first, Ellison’s own adaptation or the decision to sue. Now he gets to go ‘oh I was gonna do my own version, and this has prevented it.’ Que more dollar signs.
Because he just found out about the movie two weeks ago.
Know this for a fact.
If anything Andrew Niccol “borrowed” the idea from “Time is Money” by Lee Falk that was published in 1968. I know for a fact that producers had submitted the short story to Andrew Niccol before he happened to write his “original” spec with the same concept.
Looks like Niccol got caught stealing someone else’s stuff. Kind of ironic since the movie is about stealing someone else’s time. Was looking forward to seeing this. I hope it doesn’t delay the release.
Wasn’t there an issue over the authenticity on THE TRUMAN SHOW, which was also “written by” Andrew Niccol? He comes from the advertising world, and they “borrow” from each other all the time.
The author (Niccol) reps and warrants… that an undisclosed payment is forthcoming.
And was this Hutch Parker’s project? He just got let go. Is that just a coincidence?
it just seems like the man believes he created science fiction. maybe if h.g. wells were around, mr. wells might have a case against mr. ellison.
HARLAN IS GOD!
Harlan is more of a demigod, but I like your passion.
“PAY THE WRITER!” – Harlan Ellison
Anonymous you couldn’t be more clueless if you tried. Harlan has sued and won because he has been right. This man has sacrificed his career by standing up for artist rights. I dont see anyone else out there with the balls Harlan has to take on the fights that his does. All young Writers should thank god for someone like him.
Sacrificed his career how? he still writes, correct? He still makes all his money as a writer, correct? He isn’t working also as a dishwasher. So how exactly has he sacrificed his career?
+1 on this. Kudos to Ellison for standing up for his original ideas. If he has the balls (and the wherewithal) to sue, it protects other writers by making others think twice before pilfering someone else’s concept.
Thanks for being a badass, Harlan.
Delightful.
You pay homage to dead writers, you steal from the living. Whoops.
For such a little s#%t, Harlan can be a pretty big pain in the ass.
I’m all for anything that prevents a Justin Timberlake movie from being released. He’s such a horrible, horrible actor.
In Time is stitched together out of Ellison’s story (Timekeeper character), Lee Falk’s Time is Money, David and Janet Peoples’ Timebomb (time police force chasing working class fugitives) and Stephen Tolkin’s The Price Of Life (poor boy with little time leaves bleak working class area and penetrates green leafy compound of the immortal rich.) As I heard it, Andrew Niccol at one point approached the producers of Price of Life about optioning the material, then changed his mind, saying he would “do his own version.”
All of that said, In Time is a very good script. Just not an original one.
You go, Harlan!
It’s not a very good script, it’s very contrived and misses multiple opportunities to create and extend tension while having very little to no emotional center, no heart. Even if Niccol hadn’t stolen the ideas I don’t think it would have done well much beyond opening weekend.
David and Janet Peoples’ Timebomb (time police force chasing working class fugitives) was based on the Lee Falk Short story, Time is Money.
I though the Terminator was based on a Star Trek (original series) episode, not the Outer Limits. The Star Trek episode is “City on the Edge of Forever”, where Spock and Kirk go back and time and discover that Eidth Keeler must die – while McCoy (who also goes back in time) must stop them. It’s so clear that most Terminator fans should see this episode if they haven’t already, one of the best ones ever, and featured a then-little-known english actress named Joan Collins
ya and i forgot – this Star Strek episode was authored by none other than Harlan Ellison
Nope, OUTER LIMITS. The opening of Terminator is almost a shot for shot remake of the opening of the TV episode. I think the director of that TV episode should be getting paid, too!
s
which Outer Limits episode would that be? any ideas? i would like to see it
regardless, Terminator is still VERY similar to the Start Trek episode, which was written by Harlan Ellison, and anyone who thinks thats totally bunk obviously never saw it – was the Outer Limits episode written by HE?
I love City on the Edge of Forever, but I don’t think the Terminator movies are really that much like City on the Edge of Forever. I’m not sure if it should be legal to copyright basic time travel story concepts.
Also, Star Trek itself re-used the “Oh, boy, we changed history in a bad way; better fix that!” in the “Tomorrow is Yesterday” episode, which came out before “City on the Edge of Forever.”
Correct. The “Outer Limits” episode most obviously cribbed from was ‘Soldier’, and to a lesser extent, ‘Demon with a Glass Hand’.
I remember, quite clearly, going to see “The Terminator” with a friend of mine when it first came out. At the end of the film, as the credits started to roll, both of us said, exactly at the same time, “Didn’t that remind you of that Outer Limits episode……?”
James Cameron in an article in CFQ cited two Ellison OL episodes by name — “Soldier” and “Demon With A Glass Hand” — as inspirations for TERMINATOR, which prompted Harlan to ask why, if he liked ‘em so much, he didn’t bother to pay for ‘em…
I’m assuming for the same reason that Ellison never paid for any of the ideas that inspired his own work.
Art builds on each other. People draw inspiration from a bunch of different works and add their own ideas to it. If Terminator is a “ripoff” of those two Outer Limits episodes then 99% of art is a ripoff. Everybody can have a grand time paying royalties to everybody else.
I believe this is the favorite Star Trek episode of all time. I always thought it was mean that Kirk moved in on Edith after Bones clearly had a thing for her.
Not to split hairs, but you should probably watch the episode. Kirk and Bones aren’t aware the other is spending time with Keeler. It’s only when she mentions “Doctor McCoy” that Kirk and Spock realize Bones has been there… So Kirk’s not moving in on anyone’s girl.
I’m sure you won’t have the courage to publish this, but Copyright Curmudgeon? Um, he created it, he has a right to protect his brand. This isn’t some scrub writer suing because they think their script called THE BODYGUARD means they’re owed 200 million, this is a great all-time writer.
I know what you’re trying to get at, but I think it’s important in these cases, having lived through one (and definitively won), to be clear: just because he’s a ‘great all-time writer” doesn’t give him any more “right to protect his brand” than anyone else. EVERYONE has a right to protect their work. AGAINST anyone. Scrub writers included.
(I do realize that your point was more counter to the idea of wanna-bes making tenuous cases rather than the idea of nobodies with legit cases, but I felt the need to clarify. This is a much bigger problem in Hollywood today than most people realize and it’s revolting to see the intellectual theft some people think they can get away with just because they’re top of the food chain.)
I think the reason, though, Harlan Ellison’s standing is relevant here is because this could obviously really be a case of a writer reading and stealing another writer’s work, as opposed to an example of great minds thinking alike.
Basically, everyone who got interested in making movies by reading Starlog in the mid-1970s could have read the Ellison short story.
Completely agree. I hate the title of this article. The writer is obviously prejudiced against Harlan when he is just standing up for his rights. I optioned a short story by Harlan and paid him for it. He was a tough negotiator but ultimately fair. I feel honored to have a chance to put it to film.
The question about why he waited so long presupposes that he knew it was being made. Since he’s suing them for theft, it’s unlikely the producers called him up to tell them the movie was going into production. He probably found out like most people – when the trailer started playing.
Ellison didn’t claim Terminator “was based on two Outer Limits episodes”; james Cameron did. Unfortunately, when he did so, he wasn’t aware he was talking to a friend of Ellison’s.
REPENT HARLEQUIN is a story, not a novel (a great story, by the way). Harlan Ellison doesn’t file suits frivolously. We’ll see what happens.
Yeah, I found it a bit odd that all these people were praising Ellison without noting that the piece was actually a damn fine short story, not a novella.
Defending your intelectual property makes you a curmudgeon?
Why is he a ‘curmudgeon’ for protecting his intellectual property? Are you just bummed because the new JT movie might be delayed? I thought this site supported the artists.
go harlan!!
Biased much? How is it being a “curmudgeon” to protect your copyright? It’s Harlan Ellison’s problem that studios & directors can’t come up with halfway decent ideas? If you have the originality of a parrot, then you have to pay to use others’ ideas. Period.
Ever considered that Ellison is simply once again looking for an easy paycheck and this latest lawsuit is nonsense as usual?
I don’t like Ellison. I now know, from watching actual low-budget filmmakers work, that his ideas about how filmmaking work are absurd. His criticisms of the changes Roddenberry made to his City on the Edge of Forever script are just plain nuts. At least when he wrote about that kind of thing when I cared, in the 1970s, he just didn’t understand how hard it is to make a film. Sometimes, you make the film you want to make; sometimes, you make the film God lets you make.
But, this isn’t an example of an obscure writer complaining about use of a story that appeared in Galaxy in 1972 and then disappeared. It’s about Ellison defending the copyright of one of the best known, most widely reprinted English-language short stories. If you can’t defend the copyright of “Repent Harlequin,” how can you really defend any literary copyright whatsoever?
Stop being so Republican. No lawsuit is an “easy paycheck.” His win against AOL for hosting illegally posted stories damn near broke him.
His bluffing didn’t work that time but he’s trying to once again here
I’m not trying to pick a fight, really. But I’m not sure what you mean by “being so Republican”. Can you elaborate? Republicans value “easy paychecks”? Members of other parties do not?
He’s a Copyright Curmudgeon because whether he’s in the right or not, he sure does seem to sue a lot.
So by this logic, the MPAA are the biggest copyright curmudgeons of them all, presumably.
More so then the actual finished film, it’s the money for the P&A the Studio is worried about cause if Ellison’s lawyer is able to convince the Judge to stop the theatrical release, a good chunk of the money for P&A goes flying out the window, plus other problems with exhibitors/theater owners, cross platform deals, ect. If it’s in Ellison’s favor, they’ll settle quick and big.
He’s most likely right about this and I do admire his tenacity. It will be interesting to see where this falls after that awful verdict with the “Disturbia” lawsuit. That outcome just made the concept thieves bolder.
You mean that the trust fund for a dead author doesn’t hold exclusive rights to the story element of someone seeing a murder happen through a window?
The horror.