Kasowitz Files Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against James Cameron and Major Hollywood Studios Over Avatar: The Way of Water

Kasowitz filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of former 3-D animator and independent creator Eric Ryder against James Cameron, his production company Lightstorm Entertainment, Inc. (“Lightstorm”), The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”), and Disney subsidiaries 20th Century Studios, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, and Disney Streaming Services, LLC, arising out of defendants’ alleged unauthorized use of Mr. Ryder’s intellectual property in the movie Avatar: The Way of Water.
 
As alleged in the complaint, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Lightstorm spent extensive time and resources working with Mr. Ryder to develop a project based on Mr. Ryder’s science-fiction story titled KRZ, which is set in the distant future and involves anthropomorphic beings, an oceanic setting, and a sinister, Earth-based corporation engaging in environmentally harmful mining operations on the moon of a gas giant planet.  Lightstorm ultimately cancelled the project after telling Mr. Ryder that no one would be interested in an environmentally themed science-fiction film.  Cameron and Lightstorm along with distributor Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (which would subsequently become the Disney subsidiary 20th Century Studios) later released their own environmentally themed science-fiction film titled Avatar, which Ryder alleged infringed on KRZ.  That dispute led to a lawsuit, and although Lightstorm and Cameron were successful in that lawsuit, they subsequently made multiple attempts to acquire Mr. Ryder’s underlying intellectual property rights in KRZ.  When those attempts failed, Cameron and Lightstorm proceeded to appropriate Mr. Ryder’s protected expression anyway, this time blatantly incorporating it into the next film in the Avatar franchise.  The complaint includes several side-by-side charts that match Mr. Ryder’s original and protected ideas to the settings, plot devices, imagery, dialogue, and story arcs in Avatar: The Way of Water, demonstrating the clear, egregious, and intentional nature of the infringement.
 
Mr. Ryder seeks compensatory damages in excess of $500 million, punitive damages, and injunctive relief prohibiting further exploitation of Avatar: The Way of Water and future installments in the franchise, including Avatar: Fire and Ash, which will be released in the United States on December 19, 2025. 
 
The Kasowitz team representing Mr. Ryder includes partner Daniel A. Saunders and associate Dwayne A. Amos.