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 The artists accuse Gilliam and the film's production and
release partners, including Voltage Pictures and Amplify, of
"blatant misappropriation" of their mural in the movie, "The
Zero Theorem."
The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in federal court in Chicago,
comes as the film is set for release in U.S. theaters next
month.
The plaintiffs said that Gilliam has demonstrated a "repeated
disregard" for copyright law.
The director and his production crew were sued in connection
with a torture chair depicted in the 1995 film "12 Monkeys" that
was "obviously based" on a drawing by artist Lebbeus Woods,
according to the complaint. Woods eventually settled the case.
"Mr. Gilliam," the complaint added, "did not learn his lesson."
A spokeswoman for Voltage declined to comment on the case.
Gilliam could not immediately be reached for comment.
The movie stars Academy Award winner Christopher Waltz, who
plays Qohen, a reclusive computer genius trying to find the
meaning of existence.
Qohen lives in a burned-out church, whose exterior, along with
that of an adjacent sex shop, is covered in graffiti that the
artists said is a knockoff of their work.
In the complaint, the artists show a side-by-side comparison of
the real and the film versions of the mural parts: a turbaned
man, a human-like rat and a face unspooling into a tangle of
colorful ribbons.
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As in the Woods case, the complaint said, "here Mr. Gilliam and his
cohorts 'cannot seriously contend' that they did not draw their
inspiration" from the artwork because the mural in the movie copies
the real one in "striking detail."
The artists, Franco Fasoli and Nicolas Romero of Argentina, and San
Francisco-based Canadian Derek Mehaffey, collaborated on the mural
in 2010 and eventually registered a copyright on it in Argentina in
2013. They called it "Castillo," which is Spanish for "castle." It
has become "internationally recognized" in the art world, they said.
Woods was granted an injunction to stop the distribution of "12
Monkeys." The Castillo artists are also seeking an injunction as
well as damages, including profits from the film, which has already
been released in other countries.
The case is Franco Fasoli (a/k/a "Jaz"), Nicolas Santiago Romero
Escalada (a/k/a "Ever") and Derek Shamus Mehaffey (a/k/a "other") v.
Voltage Pictures, LLC, The Zanuck Co d/b/a Zanuck Independent,
Mediapro Pictures, Well Go USA Inc, Amplify Releasing, David Warren,
Terence Vance Gilliam, and John Does 1-10, U.S. District Court for
the Northern District of Illinois, No. 14-cv-06206.
(Reporting By Andrew Chung; Editing by Ted Botha and Jonathan Oatis)
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