These days everyone complains about the lack of originality in the movie industry, but very seldom do we see it actually proven in the court of law. And yet, somehow it appears that Luc Besson is now on the losing end of a lawsuit over his 2012 sci-fi action flick Lockout starring Guy Pearce. John Carpenter recently took him to court over similarities to his 1981 film Escape from New York, something that many film fans and critics noticed and even appreciated back when the movie hit theatres. A Paris regional court has ruled in favour of Carpenter, listing the following similarities as evidence of plagiarism:

“Both presented an athletic, rebellious and cynical hero, sentenced to a period of isolated incarceration – despite his heroic past – who is given the offer of setting out to free the President of the United States or his daughter held hostage in exchange for his freedom… [The hero] manages, undetected, to get inside the place where the hostage is being held, after a flight in a glider/space shuttle, and finds there a former associate who dies; he pulls off the mission in extremis, and at the end of the film keeps the secret documents recovered in the course of the mission.”

Lockout was written and directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger and made $32.2 million worldwide. The penalty is pretty minimal in comparison as the court has ordered them to pay €20,000 ($22,800) to Carpenter, €10,000 ($11,400) to screenwriter Nick Castle and €50,000 ($57,000) to Studiocanal. Besson’s company EuropaCorp has also appealed the decision.

Either way, it seems crazy to me that John Carpenter won this lawsuit as there are so many other examples of borrowing ideas in Hollywood that go unchecked. Is it just that John Carpenter is the only one with the balls to actually pursue legal action? What’s to stop him from now turning around and suing Neil Marshall over Doomsday? Do you agree with the results of this lawsuit?