I found an article published on TV.com back in 2005 which said that Spinner had sued ABC, J.J. Abrams, and Damon Lindelof in August, 2005, claiming they stole the idea that he had pitched to the network in 1977 — the same claim he is making in the new lawsuit he filed this week.
That 2005 lawsuit must be the one that TMZ said was dismissed for procedural reasons.
Posted in Stolen idea lawsuit
It looks like LOST is being hit with another lawsuit, on top of the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Henry Ian Cusick in April.
Anthony Spinner, who was a producer on Baretta and Babes in Toyland, claims that he wrote a 121-page TV pilot script called Lost for $30,000 in 1977.
My opinion: this doesn’t smell right.
What about all the stories Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have told, over and over in podcasts, and panel discussions, and episode commentary, about the origins of the show, about how it started off as a twist on Survivor and they didn’t really know where it was going, figuring it out as they went along. Could all that have been a ruse to distract people from their having stolen the story? I don’t think so. (If true, it would have been such a spectacular long con that even Sawyer would have impressed.)
As for the question of why Spinner waited to bring the lawsuit now, rather than four years ago when the show started, Spinner said that it took three years of litigation to get his former employer to concede that he, personally, had the rights to the script. So that part of it, I guess, is plausible.
I’m betting, though, that nothing will come of this.
Sources: TMZ and Courthouse News Service
You can see a copy of a list (PDF), filed in the lawsuit, of supposed similarities between Spinner’s pilot and LOST (via TMZ).
Picture of the gavel from Wikipedia.
Posted in Stolen idea lawsuit
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