(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Wed 19 November 2025 3:30, UK
As the fairly self-explanatory book, The Seven Basic Plots, posited, there are only a septet of narratives that comprise the entirety of storytelling since the dawn of human history, which might explain why Hollywood is so awash with plagiarism lawsuits, one of which saw Steven Spielberg take the stand.
While he hasn’t been sued as often on that front as James Cameron, who’s developed a habit of becoming the subject of litigation almost every time he writes a script, Spielberg has found himself being accused of pilfering ideas from aspiring screenwriters on more than one occasion, but, like the mastermind behind The Terminator, Titanic, and Avatar, he remains undefeated in the courtroom.
Before the release of Amistad, the filmmaker and his DreamWorks banner were hit with legal action by Barbara Chase-Riboud, who alleged that David Franzoni’s script bore one too many similarities to her novel, Echo of Lions, for her liking, causing her to file a $10million suit on the grounds of copyright infringement.
The matter was ultimately settled out of court, but it wasn’t his first rodeo. It was a headache that the three-time Academy Award winner didn’t need on a film that underperformed at the box office, not to mention one that his children actively hated watching, especially when it came so hot on the heels of the first major plagiarism accusations that had been lobbed his way.
If it weren’t for Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day, Jan de Bont’s Twister would have been the highest-grossing release of 1996, after coming within a whisker of earning $500million at the box office. The original script was credited to the then-husband-and-wife team of Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin, but Stephen B Kessler disagreed.
He suggested that the entire thing had been lifted from his unproduced work, Catch the Wind, and to get what he believed he was owed, he demanded all of the profits that the film had made, naming the two co-writers, Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, Spielberg, and his Amblin Entertainment company as the folks that needed to cough up or be taken to the cleaners.
Obviously, it isn’t always the wisest idea for one guy who wrote a script to take on some of the industry’s heaviest hitters, and while he didn’t get very far in his quest to be compensated on the back of Twister‘s half-billion-dollar success, things did progress far enough for the director of Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Schindler’s List to take the stand and testify.
When he did, he inadvertently shit all over Crichton and Martin’s contributions, as well as de Bont’s, when he attributed 60% of the movie’s success to its action scenes and special effects, 20% to Helen Hunt, 10% to the sound effects, and a measly 5% each to the script and advertising, leaving the director and Bill Paxton completely out in the cold as reasons for why Twister was so popular.
Spielberg wasn’t even sure how much money he made from it, either, although he did clarify that it was more than $20million, but less than the $73million quoted by Kessler’s attorney. The three-week trial was settled by a jury in less than two hours, ruling against the plaintiff, and despite the whole 5% thing, Crichton was happy with the result: “I’m very grateful,” he said. “It was my reputation, but their money.”
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