Forget that T.K.O. I attributed to Harlan Ellison the other day. In Time screenwriter Andrew Niccol’s attorney Vincent Cox is denying any settlement has been made.
Cox told Airlock Alpha’s Michael Hinman the Yahoo story isn’t true:
Reports that the copyright infringement lawsuit Harlan Ellison has filed against Andrew Niccol and his recent Justin Timberlake film “In Time” was settled have not only been exaggerated, but are actually false.
Vincent Cox, an attorney with Leopold Petrick & Smith in Los Angeles, who is representing Niccol in the suit, as well as an attorney with the Writers Guild of America, have contacted Airlock Alpha to dispute the recent story which claimed a settlement had been reached.
This may help explain Harlan Ellison’s uncharacteristic silence about the subject on his own website, where for the past several days he has delivered his usual banter and answers to queries from the regulars on every other subject but their congratulations on his reported legal triumph. Obviously it would have been of service to immediately set the record straight himself if those comments weren’t on target.
[Thanks to Steven H Silver for the story.]
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Given the sequence of events as well as the lack of coverage, I suspect that one of the parties (the studio) probably has agreed to settlement terms, while the director did not accept the terms.
Interesting as it probably means that (if the above is true) if the director continues to fight settling, he’ll end up having to sue the studio as well.