Science fiction’s favorite litigant, Harlan Ellison, has filed suit New Regency and director Andrew Niccol over the latter’s ‘upcoming theatrical release, In Time. The movie, due out 28 October, stars Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, and Cillian Murphy, in a dystopian future in which people are allotted a limited amount of time to live. Ellison’s suit, filed by attorney Adam Thurston of Drinker Biddle & Reath, asks that distributor 20th Century Fox be enjoined from distributing the film, and that all copies of it be destroyed.
The suit, revealed in The Hollywood Reporter, claims obvious similarities between the movie and Ellison’s multiple-award-winning short story “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (1965). THR says “For years, according to Ellison, he has resisted producer interest in adapting this story into film, but in late 2010, Ellison’s company, The Kilimanjaro Corporation, entered into an agreement with a third party to create a screenplay based on the story so that it could be sold or licensed to a Hollywood studio. Now, Ellison says that In Time jeopardizes an official film adaptation of ‘Repent Harlequin!'”
The article goes on to note that such claims are frequent in Hollywood, and exceedingly hard to prove, although Ellison does have the advantage of personal fame and obvious wide circulation of the original story.