A judge has thrown out a screenwriter’s copyright suit accusing Academy Award-nominated director Neill Blomkamp of stealing his screenplay and turning it into the 2013 movie “Elysium.”
U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton granted Blomkamp and co-defendants Sony Pictures, TriStar Pictures and others a summary judgment on Friday against writer Steve Wilson Briggs, who claimed that Blomkamp read a screenplay called “Butterfly Driver” online and turned it into his film starring Matt Damon.
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Both stories are set in a futuristic world in which the protagonists leave Earth for a satellite space city, but the shared aspects are only abstract, Hamilton wrote in her decision.