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From career-ending injuries to copyright infringement, Hollywood has faced serious legal consequences for what happens on screen. Join us as we explore movie moments that landed filmmakers in court! Our countdown features shocking behind-the-scenes accidents, unauthorized uses of artwork, problematic depictions, and tragic on-set disasters that changed the industry forever.
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00:00Stu, you're gonna freak out, but it's gonna be okay.
00:02Why? What's, is it my teeth?
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for 20 specific movie scenes that got the filmmakers sued.
00:13Grandma Lorraine!
00:14Sweetheart!
00:14Hi!
00:16What happened to Grandpa?
00:17Oh, he threw his back out again.
00:20Number 20, Avatar.
00:27Oh my god.
00:30Say what you will about the movie itself, but seeing Avatar on the big screen was a borderline religious experience in 2009.
00:38Many people remember seeing Pandora for the first time.
00:41The floating islands and cascading waterfalls burned into memories the world over.
00:46Everyone loved it.
00:48Everyone but Roger Dean.
00:49Dean is a renowned artist who designs album covers, and his work is noted for featuring fantastic alien landscapes similar to Avatar.
00:58In fact, he sued James Cameron for plagiarism, claiming that the director had copied 14 of his original works, including Floating Jungle.
01:07He sought damages of $50 million, but a judge ultimately dismissed the case.
01:12You should see your faces.
01:17Number 19, Happy Death Day.
01:22Yo, I think your friends went the other way.
01:24Can I help you?
01:32A fun movie that brings Groundhog Day into the slasher genre, Happy Death Day sees Tree Gelbman reliving the day of her murder over and over again.
01:42She first encounters her killer in a tunnel, and viewers are quick to notice that they're wearing a baby mask.
01:47Most people were probably creeped out, maybe a little bemused, but not Johnson Berticelli.
01:53He is the creator of King Cake Baby, the official mascot of the New Orleans Pelicans.
01:58Perhaps not coincidentally, the film also happens to take place in New Orleans.
02:03Berticelli sued the filmmakers for copyright infringement and sought to receive half of the movie's profits.
02:09In 2021, Universal City Studios reached a private settlement with Berticelli, the details of which were not released.
02:17Look, weirdo, I'm not scared.
02:19Why don't you go try this with one of the heifers at Delta Gamma?
02:22They're in the cosplay.
02:24Number 18, Rasputin and the Empress.
02:28Open your eyes.
02:30Can you hear me?
02:33Can you hear me?
02:35You're so far away, Natasha.
02:37Turns out, you can't just make up facts and present it as history.
02:42There's one scene in the movie where Rasputin overpowers Princess Natasha and puts her into a trance.
02:48It's also heavily implied that he overcomes her sexually.
02:51Natasha is modeled after Princess Irina Alexandrovna, whose husband, Prince Felix, helped murder Rasputin in 1916.
03:00In real life, Princess Irina was never overcome by Rasputin, and attorney Fanny Holtzman filed a libel lawsuit against the studio on her behalf.
03:09She ultimately won an out-of-court settlement with MGM and received $127,000 in an English court.
03:16The offensive scene was also removed from future releases, and the lawsuit gave rise to the all-persons fictitious disclaimer that is often seen at the end of movies.
03:27Keep looking, or you'll be lost forever in the dark.
03:33Number 17, The Blues Brothers.
03:35In one of the movie's most iconic sequences, Jake and Elle would engage the police in a car chase through the Dixie Square Mall.
03:51This was a very short-lived mall in Chicago, opening in 1966 and closing just 12 years later in 1978.
03:59The empty mall was then converted into a temporary school for the Harvey Dixmore School District.
04:04It was still serving as such when John Landis rented the building for filming.
04:08The cars caused a considerable amount of damage inside the mall, damage that was never fixed or paid for.
04:14As such, the school district sued Universal Pictures for damages.
04:18However, they too left the mall soon after, and it lay abandoned until 2012 when it was finally demolished.
04:28Pants and burgers.
04:30Yeah, lots of space in this mall.
04:32Number 16, Resident Evil, The Final Chapter.
04:41One of the most catastrophic on-set injuries in movie history occurred while filming Resident Evil, The Final Chapter.
04:49Mila Jovovich's stunt double, Olivia Jackson, was driving a motorcycle at high speeds without a helmet when she collided with a camera crane.
04:56Jackson was in a coma for two weeks and suffered a litany of horrific injuries, including a crushed face, a twisted spine, and a paralyzed left arm that was eventually amputated.
05:08Jackson sued the producers, claiming that the stunt was negligently planned and that they lied to her about medical insurance that didn't actually exist.
05:16The court ruled in favor of Jackson, and she was awarded an undisclosed settlement.
05:21And the next thing I remember, I woke up three weeks later after being in a coma and then saw my family.
05:28Sorry.
05:30Sorry.
05:31Number 15, Rocky.
05:33It was March 24th, 1975, and the legendary Muhammad Ali was fighting underdog Chuck Wepner.
05:47Nobody expected Wepner to do well, but he nearly went the distance, finally being TKO'd in the 15th and final round.
05:55Even more incredible, Wepner actually managed to knock down Ali, one of only four times that Ali had been knocked down in his entire career.
06:04Sound familiar?
06:05Sylvester Stallone watched the fight on TV, and believing that it was, quote,
06:10an incredible triumph of the human spirit, wrote Rocky immediately after.
06:15Fast forward to 2003, when Wepner sued Stallone, claiming that he never received official credit or recognition for inspiring the famous movie.
06:23Unlike the boxing match, he won the lawsuit, receiving an undisclosed amount.
06:28Ain't gonna be no rematch. Ain't gonna be no rematch.
06:32Don't want one.
06:33Number 14, The Hangover Part 2.
06:36Where are we?
06:40Oh my God, Alan.
06:42Your head.
06:44No, your head.
06:45Can you copyright a tattoo?
06:47That was the main question behind this lawsuit.
06:50In one of the movie's most famous scenes, Stu wakes up and discovers that he now has Mike Tyson's iconic face tattoo.
06:57He then goes the entire rest of the movie with the tattoo on his face.
07:00This did not sit well with S. Victor Whitmill, who designed Tyson's tattoo.
07:05He filed a copyright lawsuit against Warner Brothers, and the studio in turn defended themselves,
07:11arguing that tattoos do not fall under copyright law.
07:14The judge hilariously called this defense, quote, silly, and affirmed that, yes, tattoos do in fact fall under copyright,
07:22being considered original works of art.
07:24They were forced to settle with Whitmill for an undisclosed amount.
07:27That's good. Why don't you try to wash it off?
07:31It's not coming off!
07:33Number 13, Lay the Favorite.
07:35Have you ever heard of this movie?
07:53Probably not, considering it was ravaged by critics and made peanuts at the box office.
07:57In the background of an office is a watercolor map of Curacao, which was painted by artist and mapmaker Victor Baker.
08:05The map was used without Baker's permission, so he sued Amazon, Netflix, and Random House Films.
08:11He also claims that the map plays a key role in the plot,
08:14as the characters establish a legal gambling operation in Curacao to bypass American financial laws.
08:21Baker sued the streamers and the studio for $150,000.
08:25Not a huge sum by any means, but about seven times what the movie made at the domestic box office.
08:32Here's what just happened in New York.
08:33They're moving their lines, so now we're trying to move our lines accordingly
08:36to adjust for a couple of hours that haven't moved their lines yet.
08:39You understand?
08:40Number 12, Blazing Saddles.
08:43I?
08:44I.
08:45Your name?
08:46Your name.
08:48Schmucks.
08:50Pledge allegiance?
08:51Pledge allegiance.
08:53To Headley Lamar.
08:54To Hedley Lamar.
08:56That's Hedley.
08:58Hedley.
08:59One of the primary villains of this legendary comedy is Hedley Lamar,
09:03a cricket attorney general who wishes to ruin the town of Rock Ridge.
09:07His name is a play on Hedley Lamar, an actress who enjoyed great success in the 1940s.
09:13Unfortunately, Lamar wasn't very pleased with her name being used as the source of a running joke,
09:17claiming that it was an invasion of her privacy.
09:19So she sued Warner Brothers for $100,000, about $700,000 when adjusted for inflation.
09:27Writer-director Mel Brooks found it an honor to be sued by Lamar,
09:31and neither he nor Warner Brothers found the lawsuit worth fighting.
09:34So they simply settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
09:38Thank you, thank you, Hedley, thank you.
09:40It's not Heddy, it's Hedley, Hedley Lamar.
09:43The hell are you worried about?
09:45This is 1874.
09:47You'll be able to sue Hart.
09:48Number 11.
09:49Back to the Future Part 2.
09:51What happened to Grandpa?
09:52Oh, he threw his back out again.
09:54How's Granddad's little pumpkin?
09:56How did you do that?
09:57How did he do that?
09:58Oh, out on the golf course.
10:00This movie set a huge precedent for the future of film.
10:03Turns out, you can't just model one actor after another and pretend that it's them.
10:08Crispin Glover refused to return for Back to the Future Part 2,
10:12citing an insulting salary and a disagreement around the first movie's consumerist ending.
10:17Robert Zemeckis got around that by hiring another actor named Jeffrey Weissman
10:22and dressing him up as Glover with the use of facial prosthetics.
10:26Glover was irate and sued the producers,
10:29claiming that they had no right to use his likeness.
10:31He was right, and the party settled out of court.
10:34There is now a legal clause in the Screen Actors Guild
10:37forbidding filmmakers from doing this again.
10:40How many times have we heard it, George?
10:42Mom, I can't let them think I'm chicken.
10:46You're right.
10:47Well, you're right.
10:48Number 10.
10:49The Devil's Advocate.
10:50Here's a warning to all future filmmakers.
10:53Be really careful that your designs weren't accidentally lifted from something else.
10:57When The Devil's Advocate was released in 1997,
11:00sculptor Frederick Hart noticed that the sculpture in Milton's apartment
11:04looked suspiciously like his ex-nihilo,
11:07which is adorned on Washington's Episcopal National Cathedral.
11:11Both Hart and the cathedral sued Warner Brothers,
11:14and a judge claimed that they had a substantial likelihood of winning the case.
11:18Warner Brothers settled with the plaintiffs before it went to trial,
11:22and they were forced to make digital edits before the movie could be released for sale.
11:25Oh, oh, oh, oh, got me!
11:28Got me!
11:29Yes!
11:31Wow!
11:32Oh, oh, yes!
11:34Yes!
11:34Copies that were already produced for rental were adorned with a sticker
11:38claiming that there was no relation between the movie sculpture and Hart's work.
11:42Number 9.
11:43Tears of the Sun.
11:45This Bruce Willis-led action thriller concerns a Navy SEAL team
11:48sent to rescue a United States citizen from the jungles of Nigeria.
11:52Action movies are tricky to film, owing to all the dangerous stunts and pyrotechnics,
11:57and sometimes things go wrong.
11:59In this case, things went wrong for the movie's star.
12:01You knew all the time when you didn't tell me.
12:06I didn't trust you.
12:08Willis was reportedly hit in the head by an unidentified projectile
12:12during one of the movie's action scenes,
12:14resulting in extreme mental, physical, and emotional pain.
12:17He sought financial damages and compensation, as he was, quote,
12:22required to employ physicians and other medical personnel to treat his unspecified injury.
12:27He claimed that the special effects team acted negligently
12:30and exposed the crew to ultra-hazardous activity.
12:35Number 8.
12:36American Hustle.
12:37This movie concerns a historic FBI sting operation,
12:40so it's not really surprising that it was pegged with a lawsuit.
12:43What is surprising was that it had nothing to do with the FBI.
12:47Merely, it concerns a microwave.
12:50Jennifer Lawrence's Rosalyn claims that she read in a Paul Brodeur article
12:53that microwaves zap food of their nutrition.
12:56This is bullshit.
12:57It's not bullshit.
12:59I read it in an article.
13:00Look.
13:01By Paul Brodeur.
13:04Bring something into this house that's gonna take all the nutrition out of our food
13:07and then light our house on fire?
13:09Thank God for me.
13:10Brodeur is a real figure and has written extensively about microwave radiation,
13:15but he never claimed that they suck nutrition from food.
13:18Brodeur filing a $1 million libel, slander, and defamation suit
13:23against the movie's production companies, including Columbia Pictures,
13:27saying the film attributes his name to a scientifically unsupportable statement.
13:32He told the court as much in his lawsuit,
13:34claiming that the movie defamed and portrayed him as a fearmonger.
13:37However, a California appeals court stated that the movie was a, quote,
13:41farce, and that audiences were led to mistrust anything that the unhinged Rosalyn claimed.
13:48Number 7.
13:49Die Hard 2
13:50Product placement is all too common in blockbuster movies.
13:54As the budget for Die Hard 2 increased, Fox & Black & Decker reached an agreement.
13:58The power tool manufacturer would fork over $20,000 in exchange for John McClane using their latest tool,
14:05the Univolt cordless drill, on screen.
14:08This is a first.
14:09Yeah, well, Holly told me I should wake up and smell the 90s.
14:12The company was excited about the promotion and even created a tie-in marketing campaign around the tool.
14:17However, the scene was cut from the final edit without Black & Decker's permission,
14:21and the company was cheesed.
14:23They sought $150,000 in damages and won, with 20th Century Fox settling out of court.
14:29Jeez, McClane, you all right? You want a medic?
14:31McClane, what the hell you think you're doing out there?
14:34I'm playing John Wayne.
14:35How'd you like to spend the rest of the night in his cell?
14:37But the best part about this story?
14:39Black & Decker never actually paid the agreed-upon $20,000.
14:43Number 6.
14:45Couples Retreat
14:46This romantic comedy stars Jon Favreau and Kristen Davis as unhappy high school sweethearts Joey and Lucy Tanzini.
14:53In one scene, Joey enjoys himself to an old photo of model Irina Krupnik.
14:59Krupnik had previously sold the photo to a stock image company,
15:03but she never intended it to be used in the movie's context.
15:06As per her lawyer, quote,
15:07Krupnik did not contemplate, intend, or consent to the use of her photograph or likeness in a quasi-pornographic context.
15:15It's good for sunburns, right?
15:16It's good, yeah.
15:18It's good for sunburns.
15:20Okay, so I don't see anything.
15:21She proceeded to launch a defamation suit and demanded $10 million in compensation.
15:26But by signing the rights away to the photo, Krupnik lost the ability to dictate how it was used.
15:32A judge threw out the case and Krupnik never saw a dime.
15:36Number 5.
15:3712 Monkeys
15:38Apparently Bruce Willis is a living, breathing lawsuit magnet.
15:42In the very beginning of 12 Monkeys, Willis' James Cole is interrogated on an elevated chair,
15:48while some weird futuristic sphere probes him for weakness.
15:52Like the Devil's Advocate, this room and setup bore striking similarities to another piece of work,
15:57this one being a close approximation of architect,
16:00LeBayes Woods' neomechanical tower upper chamber.
16:03And just as the Devil's Advocate would have gone had Warner Bros. not settled,
16:08Woods won the case.
16:09He was awarded a high six-figure settlement from Universal Pictures in exchange for his work's use in the film.
16:15And the end credits claim that The Interrogation Room was inspired by the architectural work of LeBayes Woods.
16:22Number 4.
16:23Romeo and Juliet
16:25This classic adaptation of one of literature's greatest love stories turned out to be more tragic than expected.
16:40Director Franco Zeffirelli had initially promised the underage leads,
16:44Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting,
16:47that they would wear flesh-colored undergarments during their love scene.
16:50However, just before shooting, he convinced them to go nude with only body makeup,
16:56falsely assuring them their private parts would not be visible.
16:59Although Hussey initially defended the nude scene in 2018,
17:03her stance changed five years later.
17:06How should this be prevented?
17:08What sayest thou?
17:10Has that not a word of joy?
17:12She and Whiting sued Paramount Pictures for $500 million,
17:16claiming the incident caused them emotional damage.
17:19The lawsuit was dismissed, partly due to the statute of limitations.
17:24But it's still troubling that they were exploited in such a manner.
17:28Number 3.
17:29Borat
17:29Is this the most sued movie ever?
17:32Let's go through the list.
17:34The villagers of Glod, Romania sued,
17:36claiming that the movie made them look incestuous.
17:39She's my sister.
17:40A South Carolina resident claimed that Sacha Baron Cohen made crude comments about him.
17:45Give me a smile, baby. Why angry face?
17:48Well, what you're saying is very demeaning.
17:52Do you know the word demeaning?
17:53No.
17:54Driving instructor Michael Snicksa sued over the use of his image in promotional material.
17:59The man who runs away from Borat in New York sued over public ridicule and humiliation.
18:04Perhaps the most notorious scene to cause a lawsuit, however,
18:08came when two of the frat brothers Borat met in South Carolina launched a defamation lawsuit.
18:14On top of this, singer Esma Rejipova sued over use of her song,
18:19even though the filmmakers had received permission.
18:22Funnily enough, this was the only lawsuit to kind of win,
18:25as she had not been notified by her production house.
18:28She was awarded just 26,000 euros of her 800,000 euro suit.
18:38Number two, The Interview.
18:40It was perhaps inevitable that a satirical film from Seth Rogen would stir some controversy.
18:46Dave!
18:47Are you ready to share with the world that gorgeous smile of yours?
18:54Sure enough, The Interview contained a graphic death scene of Kim Jong-un
18:59that led to intimidating threats from the North Korean government.
19:03But as it turned out, the real issue arose from a much more innocuous detail.
19:08After hackers threatened to attack theaters that showed the movie,
19:11the studio opted for streaming.
19:14Colonel Films, the stealth startup handling the release,
19:17hired another company, Newstar, to ensure the streaming was secure.
19:22According to Newstar, though, Colonel never paid their $1.1 million fee,
19:27so they dragged them to court for it.
19:29How many times can the U.S. make the same mistake?
19:32As many times as it takes.
19:34In the end, The Interview caused a lot more trouble than it was worth.
19:37Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified
19:42about our latest videos.
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19:54Number one, Twilight Zone, The Movie.
19:57Much like an actual episode of the Twilight Zone series,
20:00its movie adaptation became linked to a real-life tragedy.
20:03I can't believe it, you know.
20:05I can't.
20:06Ew.
20:07Drink your beer.
20:08Relax.
20:09What do you mean, relax?
20:10In the film's timeout segment, Vic Morrow plays a bigoted man who was sent back in time
20:15to experience life on the receiving end of prejudice.
20:18The script initially featured Morrow's character rescuing two children during the Vietnam War.
20:24However, the young actors portraying the children were hired illegally and made to work at night.
20:30Tragically, while filming a scene involving a helicopter,
20:33Morrow and the children were killed when the aircraft crashed.
20:37Civil and criminal lawsuits were filed,
20:40with director John Landis and others being tried and ultimately acquitted of manslaughter.
20:45The bitter legal battles eventually led to stricter safety regulations in the industry.
20:51Holy Toledo!
20:53Hey, you guys!
20:54What happened up there?
20:55What do you make of these lawsuits?
20:58Frivolous or justified?
20:59Let us know in the comments.
21:01This is a real tattoo!
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