... Frank Sivero says that The Simpsons ripped off the Frankie Carbone character he played in 1990’s Goodfellas and he wants to be paid for it. In a lawsuit filed today, the actor says he wants to be paid a lot – $250 million and more for the Springfield Mafia’s Louie.
Claiming that the long-long-running animated series has made $12 billion over the decades from TV, the big screen, video simpsons logogames and other revenue streams, Sivero alleges in his very detailed 5-claim complaint (read it here) that Simpsons producer James L. Brooks was “highly aware of who Sivero was, the fact that he created the role of Frankie Carbone, and that The Simpsons character Louie would be based on this character.”
While likeness lawsuits bounce around the courts all the time, this has to be one of the biggest in terms of the cash the plaintiff is seeking and the time he has waited to go after it. One of Fat Tony’s crew, the Louie character first appeared on The Simpsons in Season 4 back in October 1991. And the truth is, as the pic above shows, the character from the Martin Scorsese helmed pic Goodlfellas and the Simpsons character do look a lot alike. Louie has been in over a dozen more Simpsons episodes including one last season. Fox had no comment today on the mega-suit. ...
Somehow I can't see Fox settling this for any kind of significant coin, but maybe there's a smoking gun someplace.
Otherwise, see everybody in court!
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment