Hollywood director James Cameron has been sued by British artist Roger Dean for $50m (£33m) over claims he copied ideas
for the 3D film Avatar, reports BBC online.
Mr Dean, who designed album covers for the likes of prog-rock bands Yes and Asia, filed a legal action at a court in New York last week.
He has accused Cameron of ‘wilful and deliberate copying, dissemination and exploitation’ of his original images.
Nine time Oscar-nominated Avatar is the highest-grossing film of all time. Since its release in 2009, the film, which used groundbreaking 3D technology, has made more than $2.8bn internationally.
It won three of the Academy Awards for which it was nominated in 2010, including best art direction, best cinematography and best visual effects.
Set on the alien planet of Pandora, the computer generated landscapes include vast floating islands, jungle wildlife and huge tree-dwellings.
In his legal action, Mr Dean – described in the papers as ‘an international artist and designer, whose evocative and visionary images… created a new genre of work’ – has claimed Cameron had ‘studied and referenced his art in preparation for the film’.
Ben Stiller dressed as a Na’vi at the Oscars Comic actor Ben Stiller dressed as a Na’Vi at the Oscars
The papers continued: ‘The similarities of each such work are substantial, continuing, and direct so as to rule out any accidental copying or similarity in scenes common to the genre.’
-With New Age input
