‘Lockout’: when John Carpenter successfully ended Luc Besson’s “dreams of retiring wealthy”
In 2012, John Carpenter found himself watching a movie that felt perplexingly familiar. He saw a gun-toting badass convicted of murder be offered his freedom if he successfully rescued the President’s daughter from a prison overtaken by its inmates – yet he wasn’t watching Escape From New York, his classic 1981 sci-fi action movie. Carpenter wasn’t going to take this blatant ripoff lying down, though. He sued the movie’s writer and executive producer for plagiarism and, to his delight, won the case without even having to turn up in court.
The first Carpenter heard about one of his most beloved movies being the subject of a very much unauthorised remake came when a representative of CanalPlus contacted him. That French media conglomerate owned the rights to Escape From New York, and it wanted him to know, as he put it, “Luc Besson ripped you off on Lockout.” Carpenter didn’t even know what Lockout was, so CanalPlus sent him a copy of the film to see for himself how many elements of Snake Plissken’s adventure had been pilfered.
When asked by The Hollywood Reporter if Besson did indeed rip him off with Lockout, Carpenter laughed, “Yes, he did. It’s the same story. I mean, you can’t do that, can you? You have to change a couple things. He’s after the president’s daughter? Come on.”
Lockout starred Guy Pearce as Snow, the aforementioned badass, who is dispatched to the orbital space prison MS One on his rescue mission. Besson, best known for directing Léon: The Professional and The Fifth Element, co-wrote the script with directors James Mather and Stephen Saint Leger and executive produced the film through his production company EuropaCorp. It received middling reviews, with almost every single one pointing out how derivative of Escape From New York it felt.
CanalPlus was adamant that Carpenter sue Besson, and they sweetened the deal for him by giving him what he’s always wanted: something for nothing. “The great thing is, I didn’t have to do anything, really,” Carpenter marvelled. “That’s the kind of job I’ve always wanted — where you don’t have to show up, and something happens.”
The legal proceedings took place in the ‘Tribunal de grande instance de Paris,’ with Carpenter at home in Los Angeles, and he was happy to find out the court agreed that Besson “massively borrowed key elements” of Escape From New York. Those elements included the hero getting “into the prison by flying in a glider/space shuttle” before confronting “inmates led by a chief with a strange right arm.” They both subsequently discover “hugely important briefcases and meet a former sidekick who then dies,” and both heroes end up keeping “secret documents recovered during their mission.”
Plagiarism cases are notoriously difficult to prove legally, so this was a real victory for Carpenter and CanalPlus. However, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses for the legendary horror director, who discovered that the court didn’t award him anywhere near the €3million the lawsuit sought. “Any great dreams of retiring wealthy were shattered because they didn’t give us as much money as CanalPlus wanted,” Carpenter chuckled.
To his chagrin, Carpenter was awarded only €20,000, while Escape From New York screenwriter Nick Castle was given €10,000 and StudioCanal, a subsidiary of CanalPlus, got €50,000. All wasn’t lost for Carpenter, though, because after Besson appealed the decision and lost, he was ordered to pay a much healthier €450,000. Perhaps the most John Carpenter-y thing about the entire situation was that he admitted he had no contact with Besson throughout. In fact, when The Hollywood Reporter asked if he’d heard from the La Femme Nikita director, he scoffed, “Oh, hell no! I don’t hear from anybody. You’re not listening to me. No one tells me anything.”
Carpenter also confessed that CanalPlus suggested he sue the Metal Gear Solid video game creator Hideo Kojima, as that series is “kind of a rip-off of Escape From New York, too.” Amusingly, though, Carpenter refused because he knows Kojima and insisted, “He’s a nice guy. Or, at least, he’s nice to me.”
It’s enough to make you wonder: if Besson had been nicer to Carpenter, would he have saved nearly half a million euros?
