Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: a prison movie in space.
Thanks to their science fiction short film, entitled Prey Alone, published on the Internet, the two young Irish directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger are spotted by EuropaCorp, Luc Besson’s company. He then offered them to produce their first feature. This is Lock Out, recounting the mission of Agent Snow (Guy Pearce), sent by the President of the United States to save his daughter taken hostage by dangerous criminals kept in a space prison.
Shortly after its release in 2012, American director John Carpenter sued EuropaCorp, claiming that Lock Out is a plagiarism of his film New York 1997. Kurt Russell played Snake there, a dangerous criminal, responsible, in exchange for his pardon, for saving the President of the United States, victim of an attack in Manhattan, which has become a huge ghetto prison .
In 2015, the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris ordered Luc Besson to pay 80,000 euros to the rights holders (StudioCanal, John Carpenter and his co-screenwriter Nick Castle), for “characterized infringement”. Subsequently, the filmmaker appealed this decision. But a year later, the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed the verdict and finally condemned him to pay 465,000 euros to the beneficiaries.
Lock Out by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger with Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Vincent Regan…
From 12 years old
Tonight on L’ÉQUIPE at 9:05 p.m.