Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol producers and Tom Cruise are being sued for $1 billion by Timothy Patrick McLanahan who claims its script was based on his copyrighted screenplay.
Timothy Patrick McLanahan claims the 2011 release was “illegally written and produced” from his 1998 script Head On.
He filed legal papers against Tom Cruise, Paramount Pictures and several production companies in December 2013.
The documents have since been obtained and published by Radar Online.
In the court papers, Timothy Patrick McLanahan said he had originally sent his script to the William Morris Agency only to have it turned it down.
“I was told by the agency that they could not use the script as a movie,” he writes.
He claims they then “shopped the script around the world” without his permission and passed it on to Creative Artist Agency (CAA), who represent Tom Cruise.
On watching Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the fourth movie to star Tom Cruise as agent Ethan Hunt, Timothy Patrick McLanahan said he “immediately recognized” the script.
The film took nearly $700 million at the worldwide box office, going on to earn more from DVD and Blu-ray sales.
“Because the Ghost Protocol film generated close to $1 billion, I am asking for this amount in damages,” said Timothy Patrick McLanahan in the court papers.
A fifth Mission: Impossible film is now in the works and is expected to be released in December 2015.
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