Fox are being sued by people claiming that they pitched the idea for the LoEG movie to Fox years ago, and that the final film and their version are so similar are to be lawsuit worthy.

Normally, I’d just be laughing, but here’s the stuff that makes this interesting: these people aren’t just cranks. One of them wrote Phone Booth, and the other produced The Lion In Winter. They’re Hollywood professionals. (This does not preculde them being cranks, obviously.) The presumably think that they were ripped off, or at least that it looks enough like it that they stand a chance of making cash in court.

But the bit that makes me laugh is that they’re suggesting that Fox suggested that Moore write LoEG so that they could option it, to create a smokescreen by which they would rip these boys off. I wonder how they intend to prove that, given that they’re talking about a reculse whose interest in Hollywood seems to stop at them giving him and option cheque if they want to mutilate some of his work and they getting out of his life.

It’s possible, of course, that Fox saw Moore’s work, and did indeed think that they could option it then use it as cover to rip off these boys – it’d explain why the movie seems to bear fuck-all resemblance to the comic, but given that Moore’s a magician and prone to talking about any creative act being an act of magic makes it seem unlikely that he takes commisions…