Holy plagiarism, Batman!
Hollywood’s latest swing at “The Batman,” starring Robert Pattinson because the caped crusader, is little greater than a literary heist by Warner Brothers, a comic book book illustrator and author claims in a lawsuit.
Christopher Wozniak argues the plot of the smash-hit 2022 film is a near carbon copy of a 1990 Batman story he wrote — “The Ultimate Riddle” later retitled “The Blind Man’s Hat.”
The poached plot follows a murderous Riddler who terrorizes a “broken” Gotham City rife with cop corruption and controlled by a criminal banking cartel, the suit states.
Wozniak claims entire scenes from the fantasy flick, which featured Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman and Paul Dano because the Riddler, were lifted from the story.
One swiped scene shows Batman butler Alfred firebombed by the arch villain, and the caped crusader learning of the explosion over the phone – after it’s too late.
“This scene is copied from an original expression within the Copyrighted Work,” the Manhattan federal court suit states.
One other lifted line is the “big reveal” of the Riddler, a series of riddles left by the madman that mix right into a cypher, showing he knows Bruce Wayne is the Batman.
Wozniak, whose work has been published by DC and Marvel, sent the sadistic story to DC not less than thrice since he wrote it, the suit states.
In 2008, he passed it along to film producer Michael Uslan after meeting him at Latest York Comic Con earlier that 12 months, in keeping with the suit.
“There are such a lot of original expressions from my client’s story present in the defendant’s movie that we imagine this is obvious case of copyright infringement. The similarities are only too uncanny to be accidental,” Wozniak’s attorney, R. Terry Parker, said in a press release.
Wozniak is searching for a jury trial and unspecified damages.
A rep for Warner Brothers didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.