Court reports have emerged showing French film-maker Luc Besson was found guilty earlier this year of plagiarising cult classic “Escape From New York” with his sci-fi thriller “Lockout”.
US director John Carpenter sued the makers of the 2012 film after spotting a slew of similarities with his 1981 science fiction favourite, in which Manhattan is turned into a huge prison island and Kurt Russell plays iconic anti-hero Snake.
A Paris court agreed with Carpenter, finding that relocating the action to a space station did not overcome the other glaring similarities, which were widely noted by critics when “Lockout”, starring Guy Pearce, was released.
“Both presented an athletic, rebellious and cynical hero, sentenced to a period of isolated incarceration - despite his heroic past - who is given the offer of setting out to free the President of the United States or his daughter held hostage in exchange for his freedom,” the court said in its judgment.
The court accepted that many aspects of the film were “stock elements in the cinema” but that too many details were the same.