Fat Clooney Still Winning Things
A French screenwriter who sued the makers of Syriana, claiming that portions of her own script had been stolen and reworked into the screenplay for the film which would win George Clooney his first Oscar, has lost her case:
A Paris court found that Stephanie Vergniault had not provided sufficient evidence that the political thriller was based on her screenplay, Oversight.
Ms Vergniault, 37, was ordered to pay 3,500 euros ($4,400) in court costs to Warner Bros and George Clooney's production company Section Eight. [...]
The screenwriter had been seeking 2m euros ($2.5m) in damages from the makers of Syriana.
Among Vergniault's various insignificant "proofs" was an extravagant exhibit in which she unveiled several magnified stills of Fat Clooney, then dramatically read aloud from her own screenplay and met with 12 blank, unmoved stares: "'Angle on our hero: A heavy-set, bearded, Gerard Depardieu-type.' Madames et messieurs of the jury, I rest my case."