Avatar director James Cameron and the Walt Disney Company are facing a lawsuit that claims the director based a key character in the Avatar franchise on a teenage actor without her permission.
James Cameron and Walt Disney Company sued
James Cameron is being sued by Q’orianka Kilcher, who played Pocahontas in 2005’s The New World, over her allegation that he based a key character on her image.
Q’orianka, who was 14 when she starred opposite Colin Farrell in Terrence Malick’s film, has claimed that James Cameron told her he based the appearance of Zoe Saldana’s character Neytiri on a photograph of her, reports NBC News.
In the complaint, Q’orianka claims that James Cameron extracted her facial features from a published photograph and directed his design team to use it as the foundation for the character of Neytiri in Avatar.
Q’orianka’s representatives, through the lawsuit, argue that “this case exposes how one of Hollywood’s most powerful filmmakers exploited a young Indigenous girl’s biometric identity and cultural heritage to create a record-breaking film franchise — without credit or compensation to her — through a series of deliberate, non-expressive commercial acts.”
The lawsuit went on to describe the multibillion-dollar grossing Avatar series as a franchise that “presented itself as sympathetic to Indigenous struggles, all while silently exploiting a real Indigenous youth behind the scenes”. Q’orianka’s has also named Lightstorm Entertainment and multiple visual effects companies in the lawsuit.
More about the lawsuit
According to the filing, Q’orianka and James Cameron first met briefly at a charity event just months after the 2009 release of Avatar. At that event, James Cameron personally invited Q’orianka to visit his office. At an event, the director told the actor that he had a gift for her: a framed sketch of Neytiri that he had personally drawn and signed. Along with the sketch, Q’orianka claims that James Cameron gave her a note that read, “Your beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time.”
The lawsuit claims that James Cameron had not attempted to book Q’orianka for the project, despite her agent’s efforts to get her the opportunity to read for a role.
“I never imagined that someone I trusted would systematically use my face as part of an elaborate design process and integrate it into a production pipeline without my knowledge or consent. That crosses a major line. This act is deeply wrong,” Q’orianka said in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further claimed that Q’orianka only learned that James Cameron had used her facial features after an interview clip of the director began circulating on social media last year. In the video, James Cameron is seen standing with the Neytiri sketch, saying: “The actual source for this was a photo in the LA Times, a young actress named Q’orianka Kilcher. This is actually her … her lower face. She had a very interesting face.” The complaint is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgement of profits attributable to the use of Q’orianka’s likeness and corrective public disclosure.
The character of Neytiri is played by Zoe Saldaña in the Avatar films. The first Avatar film earned more than $2.92 billion worldwide, with both sequels grossing in excess of $1.5 billion. The series is among the highest-grossing film franchises of all time.