This is an interesting story regarding a potentially amazing movie. That said, there is a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo present in the full THR article, but I will try to break it down here for you guys in more of a story than a boring document copied & pasted.
Great ready, it's story-time here at AITH.
The original Jennifer Aniston-starring horror-comedy LEPRECHAUN was written & directed by a man named Mark Jones. Jones wanted to make a movie called VAMPRECHAUN, about (get this) a Leprechaun who gets bitten by a f*cking vampire and becomes a f*cking Leprechaun-Vampire hybrid.
Thus making the coolest b-movie ever.
Anyhow, Jones had been working with this dude Lance Thompson (never trust a dude named Lance; I'm kidding, Lance) for the sake of argument and not getting too in the middle of all this crap.
Jones was working on another flick called SCORNED with this Lance dude. Mark Jones had began developing the "Vamprechaun" character but he put the project on hold to focus on funding the SCORNED movie. On the way to a breakfast meeting on morning, Mark Jones mentioned the Vamprechaun idea to Lance for the first time.
Attorney Alan Dowling writes:
"On that drive, Jones and [the Lance dude] did not discuss either the character or the story line, or the project, in any further detail. Jones simply explained that the idea involved a leprechaun who is bitten by a vampire and becomes one himself."
Lance liked the idea and wanted to help Mark find the money for the flick. He told Mark Jones to write a script he could then show to potential financiers. So Mark Jones wrote a spec script in 2013, and registered it with both the Writers Guild and U.S. Copyright Office.
None of Thompson's financing came through, so Mark Jones told him to f*ck off as far as Vamprechaun was concerned.
A few years later some other dude named John Ferraro was interested in financing the project. As if on cue, Lance started acting like he was part of the project again, so Mark Jones called up him up and told him to go f*ck himself, yet again.
After that, Lance emailed Ferraro's son claiming he co-created Vamprechaun with Mark Jones at breakfast that one day. As a result Papa Ferraro told Mark Jones that due to Lance’s "unresolved claims" he was pulling all his cash out of the VAMPRECHAUN flick.
Thank God, Mark Jones is suing the sh*t out of Lance for "copyright infringement, slander of title, and intentional and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage…" Blah, blah, blah. Long story short:
Mark Jones is suing Lance for $3 million dollars!
Good for you, Mark. If this Lance dude is the one responsible for all of us missing out on a flick called VAMPRECHAUN, then you need to tax AT LEAST $3 million out of that ass. One way or the other.
Anyways, this is already a long article so I'm wrapping it all up there. I'll let you guys know if I hear anything else on the VAMPRECHAUN news front. Hope you enjoyed story-time here at AITH.
"Who else seen a Vamprechaun?"
