Lawsuit says Netflix's 'Don't Look Up' copied author's comet story
Netflix and screenwriter Adam McKay are being sued by author William Collier, who claims that McKay copied his novel "Stanley's Comet" for the film "Don't Look Up." The lawsuit alleges that the plot and creative elements of the film are strikingly similar to Collier's work, and seeks damages of at least $5 million. The lawsuit also highlights specific similarities in mood, tone, and themes between the novel and the movie. Representatives for Netflix and Collier have not yet commented on the lawsuit.
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Author William Collier said screenwriter Adam McKay copied his novel
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Collier said his daughter shared his work with McKay’s manager’s company
By Blake Brittain
Dec 6 (Reuters) - A Louisiana-based author on Wednesday sued Netflix (NFLX.O) and screenwriter Adam McKay over claims that McKay copied his dark-comedy novel about a comet heading toward Earth in the Academy Award-nominated 2021 film “Don’t Look Up.”
William Collier said in the copyright lawsuit filed in California federal court that the plot and other creative elements of “Don’t Look Up” are “strikingly similar” to his “Stanley’s Comet,” and that his story reached McKay through his daughter’s work at McKay’s former manager’s company.
Representatives for Netflix and Collier did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit, which asks for at least $5 million in damages.
Collier said that his 2004 novel is a “dark comedy focusing on the discovery by a low-level NASA scientist, Dr. Hershel Stanley, of a giant comet on a collision course with the Earth.”
The lawsuit said Collier’s daughter worked at Mosaic Media Group’s Jimmy Miller Entertainment in 2007, which managed McKay at the time and co-produced films including his “Talladega Nights” and “Step Brothers,” and that she submitted the novel for the company’s consideration that year.
Collier said that he self-published the novel in 2012. The lawsuit said that McKay wrote the screenplay for “Don’t Look Up” in 2019.
The film’s screenplay closely resembles Collier’s work, the lawsuit said, citing a report from a University of Southern California comparative literature professor who said that they both similarly make “a strong political critique of the media, the government, and the cultural elite by showcasing their shallowness and reliance on popular opinion polls and social media algorithms.”
Collier’s complaint also noted specific similarities in the works’ “mood, tone, pace, sequence of events, themes, plot, character and setting,” and said that his book and the movie both “turned the apocalyptic ‘end of earth’ genre on its head.”
The lawsuit said that it was “implausible” that McKay wrote his screenplay independently based on how closely it resembles Collier’s novel.
The case is Collier v. Netflix, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, No. 2:23-cv-10227.
For Collier: Steven Lowe and Aleksandra Hilvert of Lowe & Associates
For Netflix: attorney information not yet available