Stephen Hendricks sued the producers of hit BBC America series Orphan Black in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday for breach of implied contract, claiming that the team stole his ideas. The first lawsuit was filed in 2014 with similar allegations but which sued Temple Street Productions for copyright infringement. The news was reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
According to Hendricks, in October 2004, he emailed a synopsis of his screenplay Double Double to David York and David Fortier of Temple Street hoping for their consideration. A few weeks later Hendricks says, he got an email saying that they were going to pass on it.
On discovering Orphan Black Hendricks realized that the series contained the ideas and themes of his screenplay Double Double, specifically “the clandestine development of clones and the resulting journey of the protagonist to discover her origins.”
Of course this could just be a simple coincidence, both parties were keen to have the situation resolved in court.
In the lawsuit, attorney S. Michael Kernan wrote,
“The similarities between the Series and the Screenplay are so substantial that it is a virtual statistical impossibility that the former could have been created independently from the latter.”
The case remains pending. A trial before Judge Ronald S.W. Lew is set to begin on May 24.
For more updates on the case, stay tuned!
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