The “virtually identical” cult classic horror movie slapped with a $10 million lawsuit
Once upon a time, Joss Whedon was viewed as the godfather of geek culture, lending his name to a string of movie and TV properties that could always be relied upon to either gain cult status, accrue huge viewership on the small screen, or bust blocks at the box office.
As well as his uncredited rewrites on action classic Speed and game-changing comic book adaptation X-Men, he was credited as one of the scribes on the trailblazing Toy Story, created both the film and television iterations of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, short-lived sci-fi favourite Firefly and theatrical sequel Serenity, so his pop culture credentials were nothing short of impeccable.
That’s not even mentioning his flirtation with the Marvel Cinematic Universe that saw him write and direct the first two Avengers crossovers, which combined to earn almost $3 billion in ticket sales. He was a made man, or so it would seem until widespread reports of misconduct began emerging from countless collaborators who’d been regulars on several of his productions.
The bungled Justice League was already a huge career blow after he stepped in to finish Zack Snyder’s superhero story, and with his reputation lying increasingly in tatters, Whedon departed HBO fantasy series The Nevers before it had even released, with the series itself being cancelled midway through its intended 12-episode run, pulled entirely from Warner Bros.’ streaming service, and then shuffled off to Tubi for the remainder of his run.
It’s a dramatic fall from grace that’s seen Whedon effectively become blackballed and blacklisted from mainstream Hollywood. Despite the repeated accusations being pointed in his direction, the filmmaker has never been subject to litigation for his alleged misdeeds and behaviour, although he was slapped with a $10 million lawsuit after being accused of plagiarising cult classic horror The Cabin in the Woods.
Whedon produced the self-aware slasher and co-wrote it alongside director Drew Goddard, with the pair combining to craft a razor-sharp, whip-smart, and blackly hilarious subversion of virtually every single trope horror had been leaning on for decades. It lives up to its title, sure, but once the survivors of the ill-fated woodland sojourn begin finding out what’s really going on, the shit hits the fan in spectacular fashion.
One person who wasn’t impressed was author Peter Gallagher, who claimed The Cabin in the Woods liberally ripped off his 2006 tome, The Little White Trip: A Night in the Pines. It was hardly a bestseller, with only 7,500 copies being published across two print runs, but he found the similarities to the Whedon-backed feature too plentiful to ignore.
As per his filing, Gallagher outlined how “the plots, stories, characters, sequence of events, themes, dialogue, and incidents portrayed in the two works are fictional and, in many respects, the elements in the two works are virtually identical.” He was adamant he had a compelling case the judge simply couldn’t ignore, but the ultimate decision ended up in the hands of the law.
Unfortunately for him, the law wasn’t buying it, and the suit was summarily dismissed to leave Gallagher with nothing but his frustrations for company. As it stands, then, The Cabin in the Woods remains an entirely original work by its strictest legal definition.
