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OFF BEAT: Hangover movie gets legal headaches

Posted On: Oct. 30, 2011 12:00 AM CST

OFF BEAT: Hangover movie gets legal headaches

Apparently not content with the millions of dollars at the box office and the gleeful chuckles of moviegoers it accumulated while in theaters, “The Hangover II” seems to be amassing a tidy collection of something else: lawsuits.

A California man has sued the makers of the film for allegedly stealing elements of its plot from a script he wrote detailing the misadventures of his honeymoon in Southeast Asia.

Los Angeles-based Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and the film's production staff had previously been slapped with a now-settled intellectual property infringement suit over alleged illegal use of boxer Mike Tyson's facial tattoo, as well as a negligence complaint in August by a stunt actor who was severely injured on set.

This latest suit, filed by Michael Allen Rubin in a Los Angeles federal court on Oct. 12, alleges that “The Hangover II”—in which four friends bungle their way through Thailand in search of a missing relative—follows too closely to the plot of a script Mr. Rubin wrote and submitted to the Writers Guild of America in 2009, according to court documents. Mr. Rubin claims his script, titled “Mickey and Kirin,” was based on his disastrous real-life wedding and honeymoon in Japan and Thailand.

In both scripts, Mr. Rubin claims, the main character travels to Asia for his wedding, is humiliated by his in-laws, and ultimately separated from his bride in Thailand. Those similarities, he claims, constitute copyright infringement and misappropriation of his right of publicity, in that Mr. Rubin's script was based on his real and private live, according to the complaint.

A spokesman for Warner Bros. declined to comment on the case.