10 Horror Movies That Led To Massive Lawsuits
4. Accusations Of Plagiarism - The Cabin In The Woods
Another lawsuit surrounding an author claiming a major Hollywood production ripped off their work, this time it was Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard in the crosshairs following the release of the surprise hit The Cabin in The Woods.
Here, author Peter Gallagher claimed that his book The Little White Trip: A Night in The Pines was ripped off by the film. As reported by TheWrap, the $10 million lawsuit was put in on the grounds that the film had taken everything from the plot to the characters to even the general structure of the story beats.
Admittedly both works take place in a cabin in the middle of the woods and feature a meta framing, however the suit was dismissed because there was no evidence to back up the allegedly "striking" similarities between the work outside of the general premise, which the judge concluded is unprotectable by copyright law as so many films have used a variation of it in the past.
Hilariously though, because the lawsuit got people searching for the book, the Amazon review page for it is full of disappointed buyers annoyed that there actually weren't many similarities between it and the movie they liked.