Quentin Tarantino is facing a lawsuit over his 2012 film “Django Unchained.”
Claims are being made that Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 film “Django Unchained” infringes on a screenplay titled “Freedom.” In addition to Tarantino, Columbia Pictures and The Weinstein Company are also being named in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit comes from Oscar Colvin Jr. and Torrrance J. Colvin who claim to have written the screenplay “Freedom” which has elements that mirror the plot of “Django Unchained.” They claim that their screenplay is completely unique and the defendants infringed upon their intellectual property.
“Before Django Freeman, there was an escaped slave named Jackson Freeman who desired to purchase his family’s freedom from a malevolent plantation owner,” the suit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., reads.”Before Dr. Schultz, there was Samson, another white man, who would assist Mr. Freeman in his efforts to rescue his loved one(s) from slavery.”
The Colvins further claim that their screenplay “provided the heart, bones and muscles to develop the unique idea tat eventually would be transformed into ‘Django Unchained.” They further substantiate their claims by using Tarantino’s more ambiguous quote of “I steal from every single movie ever made” as a form of him preemptively admitting guilt.
In the suit, the Colvins state they submitted their screenplay to the William Morris Agency and Quentin Tarantino was one of the people mentioned when discussing suitable directors. Despite Tarantino claiming he based “Django Unchained” upon Sergio Corbucci’s “Django,” this suit claims it bears far more similarities to the Colvin’s “Freedom.”
Neither Quentin Tarantino, Columbia Pictures, or The Weinstein Company have made an official response to the claims made by the Colvins. The lawsuit does not specify a certain monetary compensation but does claim to be seeking an “excess of hundreds of millions of dollars” in court.
This was first reported by The Wrap