“Clear, undisputed evidence” reveals director James Cameron came up with the concept for Avatar, a U.S. District Court judge ruled in Los Angeles. Late last week, Judge Margaret Murrow granted (read the ruling here) the Oscar-winning director’s request for
summary judgement in a suit from Gerald Morawski, who accused Cameron of ripping off his ideas to come up with the 2009 3D blockbuster. Morawaski claimed that back in 1991 he pitched Cameron on an environmental themed concept called Guardians of Eden. He sued Cameron in late 2011 for Breach of Contract and other claims. The case has been inching through the courts ever since. This is the second such suit Cameron has won recently. In September last year, the director and Fox prevailed over a copyright infringement suit from writer Elijah Schkeiban who claimed Avatar was ripped-off his novel and subsequent film script Bats And Butterflies. Here’s a statement from Cameron today on this latest ruling:
“It is a sad reality of our business that whenever there is a successful film, people come out of the woodwork claiming that their ideas were used. AVATAR was my most personal film, drawing upon themes and concepts that I had been exploring for decades. I am grateful that the Court saw through the blatant falsity of Mr. Morawski’s claim.”
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.


Now if only it had been good…
James, please come back… what happened?
You were on a roll for so long…
“These were themes and concepts I’d been exploring for decades ever since that one afternoon I went to see DANCES WITH WOLVES.”
On a double-bill with Pocahontas.
Or a matinee of Ferngully.
Which itself was ripped off from Sam Fuller’s classic RUN OF THE ARROW.
Did you hear that?
That’s the sound of air being pumped into Cameron’s already extremely bloated ego.
Great statement from Cameron. And it’s so true. Amazing how fast people come out of the woodwork when something is a success. Especially in this industry!
It’s astounding that these completely unknown screenwriters think hugely successful hollywood folks would rather steal their idea than pay them a pittance of whatever their no-previous-credits quote might have been. It’s a $200M movie! Cameron could have bought that script for less than $50k and rewritten it enough to get sole credit if he wanted to and avoided any legal battles with this guy… Cameron didn’t though, because that wasn’t the movie he wanted to make!
Avatar was so generic, any number of Sci-fi authors could claim Cameron stole their ideas. There just wasn’t an ounce of originality in Avatar, it was like supermarket own brand cola. Bland and forgettable.
Totally. It’s just like all those other books and movies about people going to another planet and using technology to inhabit fake bodies that look like the native creatures of the planet so they can infiltrate their culture! God, how many of those do I have to sit through?
Remember in Dances With Wolves when Kevin Costner infiltrated the Indians as a spy so he could learn how to defeat them? No? Because that didn’t happen? Because Dances With Wolves was a totally different story? Oh wait a second, those criticisms are total B.S.
Avatar was a top-notch B sci-fi adventure movie. It blew people away. Complaints that it wasn’t somehow MORE than a top-notch B sci-fi adventure are idiotic. “Supermarket own brand cola”? …right, that captures it perfectly– not. Avatar is more like the hot new soda flavor that everyone loved… for about a year. Like Cherry Coke back in the day.
wow your are so cool – not.
One down and ninety nine more to go.
Success has many children; failure is an orphan. Sadly, especially in this business, people are often delude themselves into thinking that their ideas have been plundered or that they have a chance to prevail over successful entrepreneurs. Even when there is some justification for their claims, more than likely they will fail. There are exceptions, of course, but the offense has to be blatant which, in most instances, it isn’t.
Jeez- It was just Pocahontas in space, whats there to really copy?
Amazing how thi stroke of insight alluded you for so many years. You could’ve made yourself rich with that foresight.
Yes Jim,it is a sad reality of our business that whenever there is a successful film, people come out of the woodwork claiming that their ideas were used.
People like Harlan Ellison…
Claiming you ripped him off for the first Terminator movie…
And Harlan was right.
Which is why a title card was added to the movie “acknowledging the works of Harlan Ellison”,
And why an undisclosed sum was paid to Harlan.
THAT’S THE SAD REALITY, JIMMY.
Poul Anderson. “Call Me Joe.” Novelette. 1957.
Read it and decide for yourself.
Read this blog – http://www.bishopsgait.blogspot.com The judges decision is just far too broad. Of course there are only a limited number of themes. But when you get into the innner workings of the sequence of events and the use of identical character’s and their actions for the situations, and the results of how the scenes play out, and the fact that one work clearly came before another. The hideous land of fraud has been more than trespassed upon it has been sought out.
So then the titanic movie was original;
which Cameron movie was ??????? None.
There is no “original” concept here. As pointed out, the film borrows heavily from the same themes presented in Pochontas, Dances with Wolves and FernGully as well the fact that Cameron borrows every character trait -motives and action- from his previous films.
Avatar is pretty to look at, but its empty of anything original.
Harlan Ellison applauds Cameron for prevailing over someone who claims credit on his original creation!
Cameron’s story may have been generic with samplings from many sci-fi scenarios, but the difference is that he told and the story better!
Shouldn’t you be doing your Geometry homework, Squirt?
So personal its FERN GULLY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-SVpZrnF34
James ripped off so many prior works in Avatar that it’s impossible to pinpoint a specific one…or you could say the collective stitching together of all these plagiarized works is in of itself an original work?
There are no original story’s anymore. Get over it.
So glad to hear that all of that is over. Considering another trial his family is going through this is rather insignificant, sad ….
Titanic, aren’t there 3 remakes of Titanic? Including one made in Germany.
The infiltration plot has long been a Sy/Fi mainstay:
Kirk became Romulan and Piquard became Bork. Gaining access to the Empire by deception was part of the first Star Wars release. “It’s an older code but acceptable.”
The orignal idea of transforming a human into an alien lifeform to survive on an otherwise hostile planet (Jupiter)came from a short story by acclaimed Science Fiction writer Clifford Simak — in his short story DESERTION, published I think in the early 60s, and later included in his award winning novel CITY. The short story is outstanding.
Always been one of my favorites, too.
“Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has seen, and thinking what no one has thought.”
HEAR YE, HEAR YE, all of you disgusting shills. The higher degrees of your fraternal order are filling up fast, as corporate lacky’s are now going for less than a dime a dozen. The choice to gravitate towards a misguided falsity is ultimately yours if you so choose. But don’t dare parrot that Avatar is anything less than a complete and unfortunate farce.
Why does the Judge not recognize the clear resentment for law that plays out in the Terminator movies? And she mentions something of “seeking an explicit thrill”, yet no mention of how this guy goes submarine diving for pleasure, and how he has sought out the pinnacle of masonic lore. Sure there are only a limited number of usable themes, but when you get into the very template itself of the inner workings of the direct line of the sequence of events and what characters are performing these events, there is something far more precise at work. Cameron’s declaration and this ruling have clear challengable avenues.