James Cameron Sued by Actress Over Character in ‘Avatar’ Blockbuster

Aude Guerrucci / REUTERS Superstar director James Cameron is facing a lawsuit claiming he based a key character in the billion-dollar Avatar franchise on a teenage actor without her permission. In the complaint, which also names The Walt Disney Company , actress Q’orianka Kilcher said the issue arose after she appeared as Pocahontas in the 2005 film The New World , alongside Colin Farrell and Christian Bale. Kilcher, who is Native Peruvian, alleges that Cameron extracted her facial features from a photograph of her in the movie published in the L.A. Times. The suit claims he directed his design team to use it as the basis for the character Neytiri in Avatar . The filing states, “Plaintiff never consented to Defendants’ use of her likeness, either in Avatar or in any related product or promotion.” Neytiri is the lead heroine in the franchise and is portrayed by Zoe Saldana. The lawsuit says the use of her facial features is “a literal transplant of a real teenager’s facial structure into a blockbuster movie character.” The first Avatar movie was released in 2009. The three movies have made over $6 billion combined. The suit also says Kilcher had no idea her face was Cameron’s muse until she met him in 2010. Cameron told Kilcher he had a gift for her—a framed sketch of Neytiri drawn and signed by him. It included a handwritten note that read: “Your beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time.” Arnold P. Peter, Kilcher’s lead counsel, said Cameron’s tactics were “not inspiration, it was extraction.” Kilcher is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgement of profits attributable to the use of her likeness, injunctive relief and corrective public disclosure. The Daily Beast has contacted reps for Cameron and Walt Disney for comment. Read it at Variety Read more at The Daily Beast.

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