Author: Hollywood film stole my plot
A New Zealand author wants to sue the makers of the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie movie Mr and Mrs Smith for allegedly stealing the story idea from his book.
Children’s author Gavin Bishop said the film’s plot was very similar to a book he wrote for schools in 1997 titled The Secret Lives of Mr and Mrs Smith.
In Mr Bishop’s book the husband and wife are spies, while in the Pitt and Jolie movie they are assassins.
He said the similarities, which he first became aware of during a trip to Los Angeles, were “too close to be accidental,” though his suburban couple do not end up in conflict with each other as they do in the film.
“They (the book couple) remain blissfully ignorant of each other’s secret lives,” he told National Radio.
He said the film characters, both assassins, “are very, very similar” to his duo.
“The fact that my book was published in the (United) States by McGraw Hill and was available to thousands of school children – it doesn’t seem too farfetched to think the Hollywood script writer of this film may have come across my book,” he added.
Mr Bishop said he could not afford to file a lawsuit, but would be happy if a lawyer was prepared to take up his case.
Film studio 20th Century Fox is now investigating Mr Bishop’s copyright breach claim, local media have reported.
New Zealand educational publisher Wendy Pye told the Christchurch Press newspaper she has been asked for a copy of the book by the studio, but was unaware of any other matters in the case.
A similar case is currently before the courts in Britain, where proceedings brought by New Zealander Michael Baigent and Briton Richard Leigh claim that author Dan Brown stole their ideas in writing best-seller The Da Vinci Code.
Baigent and Leigh are suing their own publishers Random House, which also publishes The Da Vinci Code, alleging that Brown’s bestseller lifts the “whole architecture” of their work The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
