Ghost Rider Creator Cracking Skulls Over Copyrights

Tue., Apr. 10, 2007 5:30 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Ghost Rider isn't the only character adept at burning bridges.

The skull-headed biker's creator has sued Marvel Enterprises, Sony Pictures and several other entities who he deems responsible for ripping off his copyright on their way to making the 2007 film Ghost Rider, starring Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze.

Gary Friedrich, who started writing for Marvel Comics in the 1960s, filed his lawsuit Apr. 4 in federal court in Illinois. The 61-page complaint alleges that 21 violations were committed during the production and marketing of the action flick, calling the project a "joint venture and conspiracy to exploit, profit from and utilize" his creation, which first appeared in 1972 in an issue of the Marvel Spotlight series.

The comic book writer claims to have created the Ghost Rider character in 1968 and then made an arrangement three years later with Marvel icon Stan Lee to feature the hellfire-thrower in an issue of Lee's Magazine Management, which then became Marvel, per court documents.

While that arrangement gave copyright ownership to Marvel at the time, the comic book institution never properly registered the work, Friedrich's lawsuit states, and Friedrich regained the rights to Ghost Rider in 2001.

In addition to the copyright infringement, Friedrich alleges, Marvel also damaged the value of his work, failing "to properly utilize and capitalize" on the Ghost Rider character by accepting inadequate royalties from Sony and others and failing to properly promote and protect the characters.

Come on, Cage wasn't that unbelievable as Johnny Blaze, was he?

Anyway, Marvel's fellow defendants include Sony's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, producers Relativity Media, Crystal Sky Pictures and Michael De Luca Productions, toymaker Hasbro Inc. and Take-Two Interactive, the last two of which Friedrich alleges improperly created Ghost Rider merchandise.

Nevertheless, claiming that he owns the rights to the character and his Mephistophelian back story, Friedrich says that all of the defendants "wrongfully embarked on a high-profile...conspiracy to exploit, profit from and utilize plaintiff's copyrights, the Johnny Blaze character and persona, the origin story and the related characters and personas created by plaintiff…including…the use of the same in movie theater presentations and promotions, commercials, action-figure toys, video games, clothing and novels."

Friedrich is seeking unspecified damages for copyright infringement, violations of federal and Illinois state unfair competition laws, negligence, waste, tortuous interference with prospective business expectancy, misappropriation of characters, unauthorized use of the characters, and false advertising and endorsement.

Sony told Reuters Wednesday that it had not yet been served with papers and had no comment at this time.

While Johnny Blaze's antihero antics couldn't compare to, say, Captain Jack Sparrow's mischievous undertakings, Ghost Rider reaped a respectable $114.8 million at the box office, domestically, and was Cage's first hit since 2004's National Treasure.