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The screenwriter who wrote the original script for the 1989 cult classic film. road houseR. Lance Hill, is suing Amazon about its remake that will be released in March.
Hill, whose Hollywood pseudonym is David Lee Henry, has alleged that Amazon, MGM Studios and United Artists (UA) failed to pay him licensing fees after his copyright was stripped. road house it was returned to Hill in November 2023. The studios, Hill claimed, have refused to acknowledge that Hill has regained the copyright and have instead moved forward with an alleged “unauthorized remake.”
According to Hill, he transferred the copyright to the UA in 1986 after writing the road house script “on spec,” meaning “he wrote it of his own volition, hoping to find an interested film studio once the work was finished.”
But in the form granting the copyright to UA, UA allegedly included “boilerplate” language in a “form recitation” that indicated the script was not considered a specific script but rather a “work made for hire” by a company. entity called Lady Amos Literary Works. .
Under the Copyright lawa work made for hire would normally mean that the script was created by an employee of Lady Amos or at the request of Lady Amos, which, Hill alleged, did not apply to the road house script.
Hill is the sole owner of Lady Amos, Hill argued, who “simply served as Hill’s alter ego to conduct business” and has no employees. Lady Amos never paid Hill a salary or compensated him in any way for the script, Hill said, nor did Lady Amos commission him to write the script.
This has not stopped studies from stating today that road house It was a commissioned work, according to Hill’s complaint.
“road house “It’s become a worldwide cult phenomenon since I wrote it as a spec script in 1986,” Hill told Ars. “But recently, when I got my copyright back, MGM/Amazon tried to wave me away” by allegedly claiming that MGM retains the copyright. Copyright.
The studios’ “claim that United Artists’ recitation of the form in the 1986 grant retroactively converted Hill’s pre-existing specific script into a work made for hire is contrary to law and, as such, the standard post-facto text of United Artists has no legal force and effect,” Hill argued.
Hill isn’t trying to stop Amazon from releasing the remake, telling Ars in a statement that he’s “elated that Doug Liman road house The remake is considered his and Jake Gyllenhaal’s best work to date.” The screenwriter expressed enthusiasm for the remake, crediting him for writing the original story and screenplay.
Instead, Hill is seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the studios from releasing the remake without respecting his exclusive rights to the script and paying appropriate licensing fees for his derivative work. He hopes a jury will declare that his copyright was properly recovered last November and rule that the studios are guilty of copyright infringement, owing Hill the maximum damages established by law.
“Without a newly obtained license, Defendants’ exploitation of the 2024 remake in the United States constitutes willful and continuing infringement of Hill’s copyrights,” Hill’s lawsuit said.
Hill’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, told Ars that Hill’s lawsuit seeks to defend the rights of all creators to their works when dealing with studios today.
“The asset base of all the big entertainment studios is content; without it they have nothing,” Toberoff told Ars. “It is time for them to respect the fundamental rights and art of the creators on whose sweat and labor their empires are based.”
Ars could not immediately reach Amazon MGM Studios for comment.