White Wolf Sues Sony: “We Ripped Off Anne Rice First!!”

Lately I’ve seen a few TV ads for Sony’s upcoming movie, Underworld. My main thought was really goth-like scenes reminiscent of the Matrix, but apparently its a vampires vs. werewolves film. And that plot, my friends, has the folks at White Wolf pissed — according to a lawsuit they filed against Sony, White Wolf invented the idea of vampires and werewolves fighting each other, as well as a host of other horror film ideas.

For anyone who has never heard of White Wolf, they publish a number of horror-oriented roleplaying games under their World of Darkness line. Think vampires-as-whiny-goth teens. And part of their whole backstory is an ongoing war between the urban vampires and the rural werewolves.

Anyway, it is the content of White Wolf’s complaint that makes for the best reading from them in years. You can’t make stuff like this up,

. . .

56. In the World of Darkness, some vampires are capable of amazing speed. In Underworld, some vampires move with amazing speed.

. . .

59. In the World of Darkness, the more powerful and ancient vampires are referred to as Elders. In Underworld, the more ancient and powerful vampires are referred to as Elders.

. . .

69. In the World of Darkness, vampire and werewolf societies hide their existence from human society . . . In Undeworld, human beings are unaware of the existence of vampire and werewolf societies.

. . .

83. In the World of Darkness, werewolves and vampires fight with human weapons, such as knives and pistols. In Underworld, werewolves and vampires fight with human weapons, such as knives and pistols.

. . .

95. In the World of Darkness, werewolves and vampires can injure or kill each other with their teeth and claws. In Underworld, werewolves and vampires can injure or kill each other with their teeth and claws.

. . .

97. In the World of Darkness, silver weapons harm werewolves. In Underworld, silver weapons harm werewolves.

Yeah, who ever heard of silver weapons being able to harm werewolves! White Wolf’s complaint goes on for dozens of pages like that. Essentially the company is arguing that it the whole Goth horror genre is proprietary to White Wolf, which is absurd.

The lawsuit did have an excellent press release, however, including the best evaluation of the “writing” of Nancy Collins. White Wolf’s press release on the lawsuit quotes Collins, who wrote a short story that Underworld is accused of plagiarizing, as saying,

Apparently they are marketing this as a remake of Romeo and Juliet. What I think they really mean is that it’s an on-screen adaptation of my story.

Well, at the very least she can be assured that no one would mistake her horrible fiction as anything approximating Shakespeare.

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