Harlan Ellison Suing IN TIME Filmmakers

Sci-fi author suing filmmakers of upcoming sci-fi thriller.

Novelist Harlan Ellison is reportedly suing the makers of the upcoming science fiction thriller ‘In Time’ claiming the movie steals from a prize-winning short story he published in 1965.

Starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, ‘In Time’ is set in a future where people stop aging at 25 and must work to buy themselves more time, but when a young man finds himself with more time than he can imagine he must run from the corrupt police force to save his life.

The Guardian reports that the award winning author’s copyright suit was filed on Wednesday and argues that the Andrew Niccol-directed thriller borrows substantially from his short story ‘Repent, Harlequin! According to the suit, both works are based on the premise of a “dystopian corporate future in which everyone is allotted a specific amount of time to live”. The writer also claims that the thriller lifts other concepts such as authority figures known as “Timekeepers” who track the precise amount of time each citizen has left.

Ellison is seeking an injunction to prevent the film’s release, October in the American and November in Ireland. The issue is particularly annoying for the author as he has been trying to set up a film based on ‘Repent, Harlequin!’