Twilight - SUED!
Allegations of plagerism halt production of popular movie sequel.
Hollywood, CA (Associated Press) Production on the hit sequel to the popular vampire series Twilight have been halted among allegations of plagerism by young author, Stephenie Meyer.
According to sources, Meyer has been accused of stealing the idea for her popular Twilight series of novels for young adults and teenagers from her college roommate, Heidi Stanton. Stanton, 36, of Salt Lake City, Utah, attended Brigham Young University during the early 1990's and was for a time during their sophmore year roommates at a campus dormitory with the alleged author, Meyer.
The Twilight novels have sold over 42 million copies worldwide, and have been translated into 37 languages across the globe. Meyer who claims the premise for her popular vampire series came to her in a dream in June of 2003. Just three short months later she had completed the entire novel with very little to no previous writing experience.
Allegations by Stanton, who is a stay at home mother to 4 children in Utah arose after she viewed the movie Twilight for the first time last week, shortly after it was released to DVD format. Stanton claims that she had heard about the novels, but with four small children at home has very little time to read for pleasure or go to the theaters to watch movies.
"Quite frankly, I was shocked when I began watching the movie with my husband last week. I immediately told him that she got that idea from me! I wrote a fictional short story with the same ideas when we were in college together." stated Stanton.
Lawyers for both sides were remaining tight lipped Tuesday when papers were filed in Utah for claims of idea infringement. However amongst the claims, production was halted on a Studio City California production lot where New Moon is finishing post production. New Moon was slated to be released later in 2009. At this time, that has been "put on hold" stated studio heads Tuesday evening when reached by phone.
Mrs. Stanton's claims have some credence to them as she has documented proof that a short story with very similar idea was written by her in 1993 while she was a sophmore at BYU. English department chairperson Dr. Peter Benton was at the time a second year professor of writing and distinctly remembers Ms. Stanton's prolific writing style and the vampire story in particular.
"The story stood out in my mind, at the time, because it was more advanced than most sophmore students usually presented, also the vampire story stood out because I had recently taught a series of lectures on Brahm Stoker's Dracula." claims Dr. Benton. "I felt at the time that Heidi had brought a very current and up to date look at a classic subject."
No word on when or if production will resume for New Moon. Requests for interviews with Ms. Meyer or her representatives went unanswered Tuesday evening.
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