A California woman is suing Paramount Pictures, claiming several scenes used in “Titanic” were stolen from a novel she had written years before the 1997 film was released.
Princess Samantha Kennedy -- yes, that’s her real name -- filed the 16-page, handwritten lawsuit in federal court last week.
"I've cried many, many times, I even got sick in the last year," Kennedy told HLN affiliate KGTV. "You know, I think they've done me wrong."
Titanic is the second highest-grossing film of all time and won four Golden Globes, 11 Academy Awards and four Grammys. But Kennedy says she only saw the film sometime in the past year because she hasn’t been to a movie theater since 1994 or 1995. She also says her father had passed away around the time of the film’s release and she was too wrapped up in grief to go to the theater.
Kennedy has staked creative claim to several iconic scenes in the film, including the ones where Jack paints Rose, where Jack wins a ticket to board the Titanic and where Jack and Rose steam up a car in the ship’s cargo hold.
"I have 480 pages of side-by-side comparisons between my copyrighted work and the motion picture," Kennedy says. She wants to get every penny Paramount made off the film.
Kennedy admits that her claim may seem a bit far-fetched, but she tells KGTV that Paramount had access to her writings during a legal discovery process when she was suing them for another matter.
A judge still needs to decide whether her case has enough merit to move forward.
HLN reached out to Paramount Pictures, but the production company had “no comment” on the lawsuit.
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