A Vancouver man who sued Hollywood movie director James Cameron for copyright infringement over the 2009 megahit Avatar has withdrawn his complaint.
Bellagio Café owner Emil Malak filed the lawsuit in 2010, claiming Cameron used material from his science fiction script Terra Incognita for Avatar, which went on to earn $2.7 billion worldwide.
The suit was dropped after just one day in federal court.
Malak would not comment to CTV News about his reasons, stating only that “I decided to dismiss my action.”
The restaurateur previously claimed he sent his script to Cameron in 2002 while the director was filming the Dark Angel TV series in Vancouver.
Like Avatar, Terra Incognita follows an astronaut who visits another world being mined by humans, falls in love with an alien leader’s daughter, and sacrifices his life to save the planet.
Malak said there are 42 similarities between the two stories, one of which being that his female characters were to wear virtually no clothing, a ploy to attract male viewers.
The lead female alien in Avatar, Neytiri, often appears on screen barely clothed.
The defense described the suit as “nonsense,” and argued Cameron wrote his screenplay for the Oscar-winning movie in 1997.
Twentieth Century Fox, Dune Entertainment and Cameron’s studio, Lightstorm Entertainment, were also named in the lawsuit.
In December, Cameron announced he was releasing three Avatar sequels between 2016 and 2018.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s St. John Alexander
