TheWrap has reached out to a Disney spokesperson for comment on the suit, which seeks unspecified damages and for Pourshian’s name to be added to the “Inside Out” credits. “Both works depict the details of how their protagonists’ inner worlds experience the outer world, and both do so by representing the driving forces of their protagonists’ behaviors as anthropomorphized, internal characters who are reacting to (and interacting with) the world outside.” “Even the titles of the two works are identical, stating concretely the theme of both works–the outside world of the protagonist and how that world is connected to the normally unseen inside world,” the suit reads. The suit goes on to list numerous “striking similarities” between the two works.Īlso Read: Disney, ABC Hit With $20 Million Lawsuit by Producers of Kids' Show 'Goldie and Bear' Pourshian came to the conclusion that Disney/Pixar infringed his copyright in his work.”
“After learning of the many connections between the screenings of his work on campus in 2000 and Disney/Pixar discussed below, Mr. Pourshian’s ‘Inside Out’ and immediately saw the striking similarities between the two works,” the suit reads. “Indeed, he received unsolicited calls from old Sheridan classmates who were aware of Mr. Each has distinct personality and influences Lewis’s actions in various ways.”Īlso Read: Disney Accused of Ripping Off 'Inside Out' Concept in New LawsuitĪccording to the suit, Pourshian isn’t the only one who noticed the similarities between his short film and the animated hit.
Lewis’s internal characters–Brain, Heart, Colon, Stomach, and Bladder–communicate and squabble with each other. The first internal character we see is the personification of Lewis’s brain, who operates in a command center using a complicated control desk within Lewis’s body to command Lewis’s interactions with the outside world. ‘Inside Out’ shows Lewis’s outside world as well as an interior world in which his organs react to the outside world and with each other. The suit states that Pourshian’s script and film “each tell the story of the reactions of a boy named Lewis to events in his everyday life, illustrated through anthropomorphized representations of his bodily organs that influence (and react to) his actions, as seen from the inside of Lewis’s body. Pourshian later learned of the many connections between his alma mater, Sheridan College, and both Disney and Pixar, including a number of students who were at Sheridan College at the time his short film was shown and went on to work on Disney/Pixar’s ‘Inside Out.'” Pourshian saw Disney/Pixar’s ‘Inside Out,’ he noticed striking similarities between his work and that of Disney/Pixar,” the suit reads. The suit, filed in federal court in California by Damon Pourshian on Monday, says that Pourshian wrote a script titled “Inside Out” in 1999 as part of a script-writing class and that the script was turned into a short film the following year.Īlso Read: Disney, Pixar Hit With Lawsuit Over 'Inside Out'Īccording to the suit, the school where the work was created, Sheridan College, “has sent large numbers of its graduates to work at Disney and Pixar and is considered a ‘feeder’ school for Disney and Pixar.” Another day, another lawsuit filed by someone who says that the 2015 animated film “Inside Out” is a rip-off of their own idea.ĭisney and Pixar have been hit with a lawsuit by a Canadian man who says that the hit film infringes on his copyright for a work bearing the same title, among numerous other similarities.