A court has ruled against Disney in a trial over the use of a piece of VFX software in 2017’s Beauty And The Beast.
In a surprise turn of events, Disney has lost a court case over the use of a piece of VFX software in its 2017 remake of Beauty And The Beast.
In early December, it was reported that visual effects company Digital Domain 3.0 (DD3) had used a piece of software called Mova Contour to generate the detailed facial expressions of the titular Beast, played by a performance-capped Dan Stevens.
The owner of Mova Contour – Mova LLC, founded by inventor Steve Perlman, and in turn ‘incubated’ effects company Rearden – had argued that DD3 had used the software without obtaining a proper licence. An earlier, 2016 legal case agreed with this allegation, with a judge ruling that DD3 could no longer use the Mova tech.
Rearden then took Disney to court, arguing that Disney had profited from the use of the VFX software, despite knowing that DD3 didn’t have the licence for its use. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a jury in Oakland, California ruled in Mova LLC and Rearden’s favour.
It’s not an unqualified victory for the makers of Mova, though. Rearden had originally sought over $100m in damages from Disney, arguing that the figure reflected the huge profits the latter had made from Beauty And The Beast. The jury awarded Rearden a much smaller sum – less than $350,000.
Disney had previously argued that DD3 was merely “one of four visual effects companies and over a hundred vendors” used to make the film. The relatively tiny amount awarded to Rearden suggests that the jury agreed with this defence.
Not that the whole legal saga is quite over yet; The Hollywood Reporter also suggests that Rearden may launch a similar suit against Disney for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
More on this as we get it.
