Fox Wins "Jingle" Appeal

A belated Christmas present for one of Governor Arnold's former employers.

A federal appeals court has overturned a $1.5 million judgment against 20th Century Fox for its 1996 holiday film, Jingle All the Way, starring future Sacramento resident Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Three years ago, Fox was on the line for $19 million after a jury decided the studio had ripped off a Detroit high-school teacher's holiday-themed script for its own Yuletide action-comedy. The judgment was later reduced to $1.5 million.

Fox declared itself "completely vindicated" with the latest ruling, which came down Friday.

A lawyer for Murray Hill Publications, the Michigan-based company that sought to slay a Hollywood Goliath, described his camp as "disappointed" and vowed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"It's a chilling effect," attorney Mayer Morganroth said of the appeals court reversal. "It's a terrible message to people."

Morganroth said the ruling will make the road that much tougher for the independent screenwriter or producer who seeks to take on a powerhouse studio. He said his firm recently turned down a copyright-infringement case--a good one, he added--because the would-be plaintiffs just didn't have the money to fight it out in court.

In its appeal, Fox argued the 2001 trial suffered, in part, because jurors weren't told that the studio and its writer couldn't have seen the script they were accused of stealing before completing the script they ended up making.

For its part, the Murray Hill camp argued that it was rightly due the $19 million--$15 million for damages and $4 million for legal fees--that it was originally awarded.

The screenplay squabble is a protracted, less showy version of the scuffling on display in Jingle All the Way, in which Schwarzenegger takes on Sinbad in a race to secure the last known Turbo Man doll on the eve of Christmas.

Making an underwhelming $60 million on a $60 million budget, the film showed Schwarzenegger's talent for strong-arming the box office was weakening, and helped put him on the road to the California state house. (The film collected another $20 million from video sales and TV-broadcast rights.)

Murray Hill said it saw potential in the story as far back as 1993 when it bought a screenplay called Could This Be Christmas from Detroit local Brian Webster. The script was about two men in a race to secure the last known Action Man doll on the eve of Christmas.

Murray Hill said it pitched Could This Be Christmas to Fox in 1994, and was rejected. A year later, the company's Robert G. Laurel learned of Fox's plans for Jingle All the Way, penned by a script reader for the studio.

Fox said Jingle All the Way was based on a treatment that predated Could This Be Christmas coming its way.

During the 2001 trial, a University of Michigan professor cited 36 instances where Jingle All the Way delved into Could This Be Christmas territory.

But last week, the appeals court unanimously found that, per Fox, "no reasonable person could believe" writer Randy Kornfield's Jingle All the Way was based on Brian Webster's Could This Be Christmas.

Murray Hill's Lessnau died in September 2001, about six months after his company's headline-making court victory.

"He was the first independent movie producer to beat a Hollywood studio on a copyright infringement case," colleague Dan Castle told the Detroit News in 2001 following Lessnau's death. "He had the ability to persevere against unbelievable odds."