Disney’s $10 Billion Moana Lawsuit: Shocking Claims of Idea Theft Unveiled!

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Summary

  • Animator Buck Woodall claims Disney stole his original concept for Moana, leading to a legal battle.
  • Woodall alleges Disney got his idea through a relative with Hollywood connections.
  • Disney denies any connection to Woodall’s work, and the trial will determine the film’s origins.

In Los Angeles, a court dispute is brewing as animator Buck Woodall accuses Disney of using the story for its 2016 animated success, Moana, from an older project he created. Woodall claims that his initial concept, Bucky the Surfer Boy, was shared with Disney through a family member with connections in Hollywood. He suspects this could have resulted in what he believes is a case of idea plagiarism.

Woodall asserts that he created “Bucky the Surfer Boy,” an animated film featuring Polynesian themes, long before “Moana” (now in development as a live-action movie) was even shown in cinemas. The animator maintains that he invested approximately half a million dollars to write, create, and develop a movie package encompassing a script, an animated preview, and storyboards. In 2003, he presented this package to Jenny Marchick, who was employed at Mandeville Films, being the stepsister of his brother’s wife. At that time, Mandeville had a deal with Disney known as a “first-look” agreement, giving the studio the right to distribute any films Mandeville intended to produce first.

As a passionate movie enthusiast, I find myself in a rather peculiar situation. I’m asserting that my friend, Marchick, urged me to delve deeper into the narrative of ‘Bucky’, which later seemed to have been utilized by Disney to create the captivating tale of ‘Moana’. To put it simply, both ‘Bucky’ and ‘Moana’ revolve around a teenage character who bravely disregards parental warnings and embarks on a perilous journey across the Polynesian sea to save a dwindling Polynesian island. Furthermore, both stories celebrate the Polynesian people’s inherent connection to the sea as their birthright.

However, Disney vehemently denies any connection between my work and ‘Moana’, stating that their creative team independently developed the storyline. The ongoing trial, initiated by Court House News on Tuesday, aims to establish whether Disney had access to my script and sketches for ‘Bucky’ and if the similarities are substantial enough to support my claims of copyright infringement. Jury selection is in progress at the moment, paving the way for a dramatic courtroom confrontation over the origins of this blockbuster film.

Disney Faces $10 Billion Copyright Lawsuit

In the case of Woodall, there are substantial legal hurdles due to the timing of his actions. He watched Moana towards the end of 2016 and believed it bore resemblance to his own project, but he filed his lawsuit in 2020, which is beyond the acceptable timeframe for most of his allegations. This means that only claims against Disney’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment, the company responsible for distributing Moana on DVD and Blu-ray, remain valid. Woodall attempted to involve Disney+ in the lawsuit as well, suggesting that streaming revenue should be taken into account when calculating damages. However, his request was denied by the judge who deemed Disney+, which will stream Moana’s sequel next month, as a separate entity from Buena Vista Home Entertainment, the sole remaining defendant in this case.

In the court case, the judge will apply an external evaluation method to check if any unique elements from the film “Bucky” were copied by “Moana,” as opposed to common themes. Disney has strongly asserted that “Moana,” one of its top-tier animated films, was not influenced or based on Woodall or “Bucky” in any way. Essentially, Disney argues that the creation of “Moana” was entirely independent and original within their studio. The trial is now ongoing, and a jury will eventually decide if Disney’s multi-billion dollar franchise was genuinely born from internal creativity or if it has roots traced back to an obscure animator’s old script.

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2025-03-01 02:09