Regarding yesterday's posting regarding the music from the film 300
Shortly after the film was released, there was considerable controversy as regards Tyler Bates's score. It was pointed out that Bates' music heavily borrowed from Elliot Goldenthal's score for Titus (1999). In particular, Bates' "Remember Us" is identical in parts to Goldenthal's "Finale", and "Returns a King" is very similar to "Victorius Titus." There was talk of an impending lawsuit, however, on 3rd August 2007, Warner Bros. Pictures acknowledged on the film's official website, "a number of the music cues for the score of 300 were, without our knowledge or participation, derived from music composed by Academy Award winning composer Elliot Goldenthal for the motion picture Titus. Warner Bros. Pictures has great respect for Elliot, our longtime collaborator, and is pleased to have amicably resolved this matter."
Oh, without their knowledge and/or participation, eh? Maybe if they hadn't temp tracked the film with Titus and maybe if Tyler hadn't known that if he didn't do what they wanted and ape the temp track that his score would be tossed and he replaced, maybe then we'd believe that bit or revisionism. I'm surprised there aren't more lawsuits and accusations because this happens all the time.
This happens with screenplays, too.
[Big surprise!] 
True story:
Many years ago, I went to the movies to see the 2nd installment in what was to become a
very successful 4-movie franchise.
About a half-hour into the movie, a new character is introduced who is virtually identical to a character I created for a screenplay that I had written (and was produced...
badly). This character had a different name, but his situation, personality and manner of speech was too close to mine to be accidental.
I checked with my agent and he confirmed that my orginal script had, indeed, been submitted to the well-known producer of this franchise
before it was sold elsewhere.
I also talked with an attorney and sent him my script. He went to see the movie and reported back that there were approximately 25-30 points of similarity between the franchise film and mine. He felt that we had an excellent chance of prevailing.
So, why didn't I sue?
Mainly because this was the
2nd film in the franchise. The only thing that they stole was my character and his storyline (although the character did re-appear in the final 2 movies of the franchise).
Had this been the first movie, I could probably gotten a large settlement...but now we'd only be talking about one character, thus even if I won, what I would get would not be worth being branded as a "troublemaker" in this town.
If this happened today, I'd sue in a minute...because, being on the "gray list," I really have nothing to lose.
