'Shape Of Water' Creators Sued Over Plagiarism Claims As Oscars Approach
The suit alleges the best-picture nominee lifted its story, characters and even several snippets of dialogue from Paul Zindel's 1969 play Let Me Hear You Whisper.
With less than two weeks to go until the Academy Awards, a leading best-picture nominee has been slapped with a high-profile lawsuit. In a complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, the estate of Paul Zindel alleges The Shape of Water "brazenly copies the story, elements, characters, and themes" of a 1969 work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.
The estate has sued director Guillermo Del, for stealing ideas from Zindel's — a play that also features a female janitor bonding with a supernatural aquatic creature and attempting to rescue it from a secret research laboratory's nefarious uses. The suit also names the companies responsible for the production and distribution of and based on the movie.
