Disney has prevailed at least for the moment in a copyright complaint targeting its animated box-office hit "Zootopia."
U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald ruled Tuesday that Gary L. Goldman's Esplanade Productions hadn't presented enough evidence to make a plausible claim for infringement against Disney with the film, which won the Academy Award for best animated feature in 2016.
The suit was filed in March and claimed that the concept and characters from "Zootopia" were derived from a pitch made by Goldman to Disney for an animated project called "Looney." Goldman, whose credits include writing the script for "Total Recall" and producing "Minority Report," claimed he twice ran the idea past Disney executives, in 2000 and 2009.
Though he included some analysis in his ruling, Fitzgerald said the problem was that Esplanade failed to include Goldman's materials from the project he pitched to Disney. The studio had earlier complained about it in a dismissal bid filed by Daniel Petrocelli of O'Melveny & Myers, and Esplanade attempted to detail similarities, but not to the satisfaction of Fitzgerald.
"The parties now dispute whether Goldman's materials are sufficiently similar to the Disney film to support an action for copyright infringement," wrote Fitzgerald. "But despite both parties' urging, the Court cannot engage in a copying analysis on the merits because Esplanade failed either to attach the allegedly infringed materials to the Complaint, or to describe them in sufficient detail to permit the requested analysis."
The good news for Esplanade, Goldman and their attorneys, Gary Gans and Jeffery McFarland at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, was that he gave them leave to amend that is to produce the materials until July 24.
"We will file an amended complaint right away," Gans said Tuesday following the ruling.
The bad news would be that the analysis Fitzgerald provided seemed to favor Disney. He found insufficient grounds for infringement in the plot, characters and dialogue, albeit without the missing materials.
The 3-D animated "Zootopia" was made for $150 million and brought in just over $1 billion at the global box office last year, making it the second-highest grossing film every from Walt Disney Animation Studios. The adventure comedy won the praise of critics for the way its anthropomorphic animal characters subtly addressed discrimination and social stereotypes.
Copyright suits targeting its animated hits are nothing new for Disney.