Research Guru / Moderator
Posted:
Feb 16, 2005, 8:56 PM
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Diving NJ dentist alleges his Nemo was stolen
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Scuba-diving dentist Dennis G. Sternberg has filed a lawsuit against Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, charging that they stole his idea for the 2003 animated blockbuster Finding Nemo.
Sternberg, 56, of Allenhurst, New Jersey filed the suit this week in U.S. District Court in Newark. He claimed that he used his experiences as a certified diver to create "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish," an underwater adventure story for children, in 1991.
The amphibious dentist stated that he sent an illustrated manuscript to Disney and talked on the phone at great length with a writer from Pixar about his story. Pixar has a distribution partnership with the Mouse House.
Sternberg was told by a Disney vice-president in 1996 that the story had "great potential," but that it didn't fit into the studio's "development slate" at the time, the suit said.
He smelled something fishy seven years later when he was in a movie house and saw a preview for an upcoming attraction: Finding Nemo.
"I thought, 'Hey, I'm the scuba-diving dentist. Those are my characters, that's my story.' It made me sick to my stomach,'' he told The Star-Ledger for Wednesday's editions.
Reached by the newspaper Tuesday, neither Disney nor Pixar would comment.
Finding Nemo recounts how young clownfish Nemo is caught by a scuba diver and arrives in a fish tank in a dentist's office. After Nemo's father searches the ocean for him, Nemo escapes from the dentist's tank and, in time, is reunited with his father.
The New Jersey dentist's story even had a character named "Nimo."
Sternberg's suit alleges a violation of federal copyright laws, as well as fraud and misrepresentation, breach of contract, unjust enrichment and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. The companies "have intentionally, knowingly, illicitly and slavishly copied plaintiff's protected works in whole or in substantial part," the suit contends.
The lawsuit also asks the court to void a two-page waiver that Disney compelled Sternberg to sign before submitting his manuscript. The waiver said that he would be entitled to just $500 if he claimed that Disney used his material without permission or authorization.
"Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish" tells of "two worlds coming together -- above and below the sea, with unusual sea creatures such as hatchet fish, creatures with large eyes, and other exaggerated features, undersea turtles and their travels on the undersea Gulf Stream currents," the lawsuit says.
For a long time, the lawsuit states, Sternberg was personally acquainted with a woman who was an executive secretary at ABC Capitol Cities, a Disney company. The suit adds that he sent a copy of his manuscript to the secretary, who encouraged him to send Disney another copy.
That second copy, the suit alleges, reached Barry Blumberg, an executive vice-president of TV animation at Disney. Stern says that Blumberg called him at his home in November 1996 to discuss the story.
During that phone call, Blumberg told him, "We all love 'Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish' and the entire concept," the lawsuit said.
Blumberg's office, the suit said, connected Sternberg in touch with Pixar employee Andrew Stanton. Sternberg told Stanton that he envisioned "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish" surfacing during the story and finding his way by using the Statue of Liberty.
The title character of Finding Nemo, by comparison, surfaces and gets his bearings upon seeing the Sydney Opera House.
That's just one way, according to the lawsuit, in which "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish" is "substantially similar to the expression, premise and storyline of Finding Nemo."
Stanton was the director and story writer of Finding Nemo, as well as one of the film's three screenwriters who were nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay.
"The thing that makes this so different from other similar situations is the amount of contact between Dr. Sternberg and the studios,'' said William T. Hill, Sternberg's lawyer. "There was a vice-president from Disney on the phone with this guy. Vice-presidents from Disney don't contact just any old Joe Schmoe off the street.''
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"Oh boy." -- Allan Sherman
(This post was edited by eminovitz on Feb 16, 2005, 10:03 PM)
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