1989 action film screenwriter Roadhouse is suing MGM Studios and its owner Amazon Studios, accusing them of copyright infringement over an upcoming film Roadhouse remake, report Los Angeles Times and hollywood reporter.The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. Central District Court in Los Angeles, also accuses Amazon Studios of using generative artificial intelligence to clone actors’ voices to complete Roadhouse Reshoots were resumed during last year’s Hollywood strike, which brought film production to a virtual halt.
According to reports, screenwriter R. Lance Hill stated in the complaint that he submitted a petition to the U.S. Copyright Office in November 2021 to reclaim the rights to the script (the original and Roadhouse and the Amazon Studios reboot is based on).By then, Amazon will have Roadhouse But the tech giant’s ownership of the production is set to expire in November 2023, thanks to the tech giant’s acquisition of MGM’s film library.
But according to THRHill’s original agreement with United Artists (which acquired the rights to the 1986 screenplay, later acquired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) was defined as a “work for hire.” According to the U.S. Copyright Office, this term means that the party who hires an individual to create a work is both the owner and copyright holder of the work.
Hill claimed that the work-for-hire terms were just boilerplate and that Amazon ignored his copyright claims and rushed to produce remakes, even taking “extreme measures” such as using generative artificial intelligence. The lawsuit is seeking a court order to block the release of the film, which is scheduled to premiere on opening night at SXSW on March 8 and stream on Prime Video on March 21.
Amazon-MGM Studios flatly denies using artificial intelligence to replace or recreate actors’ voices in statement edgespokesperson Jenna Klein told us, “The studio specifically instructed the filmmakers not to use artificial intelligence in this film.”
“If AI is used at any time, it’s by the filmmakers (when editing the early cuts of the film)”
“If at any point artificial intelligence is used, it is with the filmmakers[when editing early cuts of the film]and not the studio, because they control the editorial,” Klein wrote, adding that the film’s producers People were instructed to remove any “artificial intelligence or non-SAG AFTRA actors” upon completion of the film.
Amazon also said the “numerous allegations” in the lawsuit are “absolutely false” and that the company does not believe its copyrights have actually expired. Roadhouse.