'Avatar 2' Movie Trailer & Release Date: A Stolen Franchise?
The big news: nothing is really original in Hollywood. Just a few days after the verdict was finally given for Robin Thicke and Pharell Williams' copyright infringement case for "Blurred Lines," another big shot is being sued for apparently stealing a franchise that earned big bucks at the big box.
In a report by The Hollywood Reporter, it seems that a Chechen author by the name Ruslan Zakriyev has sued James Cameron for plagiarizing a novel that he published in 2002, called "Sekretnoye Oruzhiye" or "Secret Weapon." He claims that some scenes from the hit film "Avatar" were identical to the scenes in the book.
The author reportedly told Russian News Service, "Cameron should pay me $1 billion out of the $3 billion which the movie made. I'd like to form a film studio and make films, too."
Cinema Blend, however, noted that this is not the first time that someone tried to sue Cameron for his biggest film, considering that "Avatar" is a highly derivative work. As the website pointed out, Cameron took the premise of transferring the mind into new bodies, and as interesting as it is, it is not an entirely original concept. This means that similar scenes or not, Zakriyev is one among the many who thinks Cameron's plot resembles his work. The likelihood of the Chechen author winning the case is highly unlikely, and the studio is not looking to give a big payout for everyone who tries to sue the director.
Currently, Cameron is looking to film not only a second "Avatar" film, but three projects are currently being worked on with a team, as reported by Screen Rant. All three sequels will be shot simultaneously, with the films to be released on a yearly basis from 2017 to 2019.
The original release date of "Avatar 2" was deemed too ambitious by the filmmaker, and has, at the latest, pushed the film for a late 2017 release, as it was proving to be a big challenge.
Cameron explained to ABC News: "There's a layer of complexity in getting the story to work as a saga across three films that you don't get when you're making a stand-alone film. [My team and I are] writing three simultaneously. And we've done that so that everything tracks throughout the three films. We're not just going to do one and then make up another one and another one after that. And parallel with that, we're doing all the design. So we've designed all the creatures and the environments."
Looks like Cameron has big plans for the sequels, and is far too busy to address the claims made by Zakriyev. What do you think of the plagiarism accusations?