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The movie John Carpenter successfully sued for plagiarism
John Carpenter successfully sued Luc Besson's 'Lockout' for plagiarism - and a French court found that it did indeed rip off 'Escape From New York.'
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(Credit: Alamy)
Film » Cutting Room Floor
Sat 1 February 2025 16:35, UK
In 2012, John Carpenter found himself watching a movie that felt perplexingly familiar. He saw a gun-toting badass convicted of murder be offered his freedom if he successfully rescued the Presidentâs daughter from a prison overtaken by its inmates â yet he wasnât watching Escape From New York, his classic 1981 sci-fi action movie. Carpenter wasnât going to take this blatant ripoff lying down, though. He sued the movieâs writer and executive producer for plagiarism and, to his delight, won the case without even having to turn up in court.
The first Carpenter heard about one of his most beloved movies being the subject of a very much unauthorised remake came when a representative of CanalPlus contacted him. That French media conglomerate owned the rights to Escape From New York, and it wanted him to know, as he put it, âLuc Besson ripped you off on Lockout.â Carpenter didnât even know what Lockout was, so CanalPlus sent him a copy of the film to see for himself how many elements of Snake Plisskenâs adventure had been pilfered.
When asked by The Hollywood Reporter if Besson did indeed rip him off with Lockout, Carpenter laughed, âYes, he did. Itâs the same story. I mean, you canât do that, can you? You have to change a couple things. Heâs after the presidentâs daughter? Come on.â
Lockout starred Guy Pearce as Snow, the aforementioned badass, who is dispatched to the orbital space prison MS One on his rescue mission. Besson, best known for directing LĂ©on: The Professional and The Fifth Element, co-wrote the script with directors James Mather and Stephen Saint Leger and executive produced the film through his production company EuropaCorp. It received middling reviews, with almost every single one pointing out how derivative of Escape From New York it felt.
CanalPlus was adamant that Carpenter sue Besson, and they sweetened the deal for him by giving him what heâs always wanted: something for nothing. âThe great thing is, I didnât have to do anything, really,â Carpenter marvelled. âThatâs the kind of the job Iâve always wanted â where you donât have to show up, and something happens.â
The legal proceedings took place in the âTribunal de grande instance de Paris,â with Carpenter at home in Los Angeles, and he was happy to find out the court agreed that Besson âmassively borrowed key elementsâ of Escape From New York. Those elements included the hero getting âinto the prison by flying in a glider/space shuttleâ before confronting âinmates led by a chief with a strange right arm.â They both subsequently discover âhugely important briefcases and meet a former sidekick who then dies,â and both heroes end up keeping âsecret documents recovered during their mission.â
Plagiarism cases are notoriously difficult to prove legally, so this was a real victory for Carpenter and CanalPlus. However, it wasnât all sunshine and roses for the legendary horror director, who discovered that the court didnât award him anywhere near the âŹ3million the lawsuit sought. âAny great dreams of retiring wealthy were shattered because they didnât give us as much money as CanalPlus wanted,â Carpenter chuckled.
To his chagrin, Carpenter was awarded only âŹ20,000, while Escape From New York screenwriter Nick Castle was given âŹ10,000 and StudioCanal, a subsidiary of CanalPlus, got âŹ50,000. All wasnât lost for Carpenter, though, because after Besson appealed the decision and lost, he was ordered to pay a much healthier âŹ450,000. Perhaps the most John Carpenter-y thing about the entire situation was that he admitted he had no contact with Besson throughout. In fact, when The Hollywood Reporter asked if heâd heard from the La Femme Nikita director, he scoffed, âOh, hell no! I donât hear from anybody. Youâre not listening to me. No one tells me anything.â
Carpenter also confessed that CanalPlus suggested he sue the Metal Gear Solid video game creator Hideo Kojima, as that series is âkind of a rip-off of Escape From New York, too.â Amusingly, though, Carpenter refused because he knows Kojima and insisted, âHeâs a nice guy. Or, at least, heâs nice to me.â
Itâs enough to make you wonder: if Besson had been nicer to Carpenter, would he have saved nearly half a million euros?
Related Topics
John CarpenterLuc Besson
