Luc Besson’s (Lucy) production company Europacorp has been ordered by a French court to pay €80,000 in damages after John Carpenter (Halloween) filed a lawsuit claiming that Besson-produced thriller Lockout infringed the copyright of his own Escape From New York.
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Lockout, which received predominantly negative reviews on release, was often compared unfavourably to Carpenter’s 80s thriller.
A report from French legal publishers Légipresse said that the courts had “noted many similarities” between the two films.
They said: “Both presented an athletic, rebellious and cynical hero, sentenced to a period of isolated incarceration – despite his heroic past – who is given the offer of setting out to free the President of the United States or his daughter held hostage in exchange for his freedom; he manages, undetected, to get inside the place where the hostage is being held, after a flight in a glider/space shuttle, and finds there a former associate who dies; he pulls off the mission in extremis, and at the end of the film keeps the secret documents recovered in the course of the mission.”
Of the €80,000 damages, €20,000 went to Carpenter, €10,000 to Carpenter’s co-writer Nick Castle and €50,000 to distributor StudioCanal.
The claimants had originally sought €3,000,000 in damages.
Europacorp has stated their intention to appeal the ruling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=I4qvd6xJlpE
Originally published October 17, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
