10 Movie Scenes That Led To Massive Lawsuits - Commenter Edition
1. The Crispin Glover Lookalike - Back To The Future Part II
Despite being offered the opportunity to return, actor Crispin Glover chose not to reprise his role as George McFly in 1989's Back To The Future Part II, but that didn't stop the filmmakers from putting the character in the movie anyway.
The way director Robert Zemeckis did this was by using footage of Glover that had been shot for the original movie (such as the scene where George punches Biff in the car park), but he also went one step further by enlisting actor Jeffrey Weissman to shoot some new George scenes, and it was this creative choice that led to Glover filing a lawsuit against Universal Pictures.
Why? Well, rather than having Weissman simply look like Weissman, Zemeckis trussed the actor up with facial prosthetics to make him look exactly like Glover. However, Glover never gave the crew permission to do this, and while Zemeckis had every right to use the character of George McFly, he did not have the right to use Glover's likeness.
While the case didn't get too deep into the court system, it was eventually settled for a reported $760,000, and inspired changes in Screen Actors Guild rules that aimed to prevent situations like this from cropping up again.