avatar director James Cameron and Walt Disney Co. are facing a lawsuit that claims the director based a key character in the Avatar franchise on a teenage actor without his permission.
James Cameron and Walt Disney Company sued
Quiorinka Kilcher, who played Pocahontas in 2005’s The New World, is suing James Cameron over allegations that he based the title character on her.
Cuorinka, who was 14 when she starred opposite Colin Farrell in Terrence Malick’s film, has claimed that James Cameron told her he was attracted to her based on her appearance. Zoe Saldana’s character Neytiri is in a photo of her, NBC News reports.
In the complaint, Q’orianka claims that James Cameron extracted her facial features from a published photograph and instructed his design team to use it as the foundation for the character Neytiri in Avatar.
Cuorinka’s representatives argue through the lawsuit that “This case exposes how one of Hollywood’s most powerful filmmakers knowingly, exploited a young Indigenous girl’s biometric identity and cultural heritage to create a record-breaking film franchise through a series of non-expressive commercial acts – without crediting or compensating her.”
The lawsuit described the billion-dollar-grossing Avatar series as a franchise that “presented itself as sympathetic to indigenous struggles, all the while quietly exploiting an actual indigenous youth behind the scenes”. Q’orianka’s also named Lightstorm Entertainment and several visual effects companies in the lawsuit.
More about the lawsuit
According to the filing, Cuorinka and James Cameron first met at a charity event in 2009, just months after the release of Avatar. At that event, James Cameron personally invited Q’orianka to visit his office. At one event, the director told the actor he had a gift for him: a framed sketch of Neytiri that he had personally created and signed. Along with the sketch, Cuorinka claims James Cameron left her a note that read, “Your beauty was my initial inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time.”
The lawsuit claims that James Cameron did not attempt to book Cuorinka for the project, despite her agent attempting to get her the opportunity to read for a role.
“I never imagined that someone I trusted would systematically use my face as part of an elaborate design process and integrate it into the production pipeline without my knowledge or consent. This crosses a major line. This act is extremely wrong,” Cuorinka said in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further claims that Cuorinka became aware that James Cameron had used her facial features after an interview clip of the director circulated on social media last year. In the video, James Cameron is standing with the Neytiri sketch, saying: “The actual source of this was a photo in the LA Times, of a young actress named Corianka Kilcher. It’s actually her… her lower face. Her face was very interesting.” The complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgement of profits caused by the use of Quorinka’s likeness, and corrective public disclosure.
Neytiri is played by Zoe Saldana Avatar movies. The first Avatar film grossed over $2.92 billion worldwide, while both sequels grossed over $1.5 billion. The series is one of the highest-grossing film franchises of all time.