The world of lawsuits where one artist says another artist stole something from them is a bizarre and often fascinating place. JK Rowling has been sued so many times over Harry Potter that if every plaintiff claiming she’d stolen their ideas were correct, she’d be the biggest pagiarist in history. Unsurprisingly, so far no one’s actually succeeded in proving Rowling nicked a thing.
Now Tarantino’s got someone coming out of the woodwork with a lawsuit, this one relating to Kill Bill and the character of O-Ren Ishii. TMZ reports that “Dannez Hunter claims in 1999 he submitted a treatment to Miramax about a fictional character named Ren. Short story — he says eventually Miramax, Harvey Weinstein and Q.T. ripped off his work, including the “concept/character name Ren.” He claims Q.T. pilfered Ren witnessing her mother’s sadistic murder, the knife through the mother’s abdomen, and on and on.”
The plaintiff goes on to claim that there was a racial motive for his snub as well, becuase he applied for a job at Miramax, but he “was never given a return phone call, as numerous similar situated less qualified Jewish and White people were bestowed job after job after job.”
He also claims he was denied royalties in Kill Bill compared to similarly situated whites and Jews. And for all this, Hunter wants more than a million bucks!
I always find it bizarre how long it often takes these people to crawl out of the woodwork and cry foul, and also how flimsy their evidence is that they’ve been wronged is. Nevertheless most people suing over stolen ideas aren’t just doing it for the money (although it’s definitely a big part), they really, genuinely believe what they’re saying. Somehow I don’t think Tarantino’s too worried about this one though.