A $10m copyright lawsuit filed against the creative team behind Joss Whedon (Avengers: Age of Ultron) and Drew Goddard’s (The Martian) self-referential 2012 horror film The Cabin in the Woods has been dismissed by a US court.
Entertainment Weekly reports that District Judge Otis D. Wright II granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss on Friday on the grounds that the novel’s premise was “unprotectable”.
The lawsuit against The Cabin in the Woods was filed back in April, when author Peter Gallagher alleged that the story bore close resemblance to his novel The Little White Trip: A Night in the Pines.
Gallagher claimed that Whedon and Goddard’s film took plot, mood and pace details from his book, along with the names of some of the lead characters.
“While the two works share a common premise of students travelling to remote locations and subsequently being murdered, real or otherwise, that premise is unprotectable,” said Wright.
“The concept of young people venturing off to such locations and being murdered by some evil force is common in horror films.”
He added: “The way each work plays out is drastically different than the other, as is the way they develop their core themes and how they provide commentary.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=qvTY7eXXIMg
Originally published September 15, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
