Petteri Pyyny
17 Oct 2003 15:26
Heavy machinery company Caterpillar has sued Disney to block its upcoming DVD cartoon sequel, George of the Jungle 2. Sounds weird? It gets better..
Apparently, according to Caterpillar, Disney uses Caterpillar's trademark without Caterpillar's permission in the movie and the whole movie portrays Caterpillar as an "evil attacking army" that tries to destroy the jungle.
Caterpillar wants to block the U.S. release of the movie, wants Disney to modify the movie in order to remove any links between the movie and Caterpillars and re-release the movie after those modifications have been done. Disney claims that movie has been released already in 12 countries outside U.S. and they haven't heard any single complain about the Caterpillar issue.
According to Disney, company has already sent out 2.2 million copies to over 35,000 retailers in the U.S. and recalling those copies would cost over a million dollars, plus an additional 9 million dollars for already-spent marketing dollars.
Chief U.S. District Judge Joe B. McDade is going to make his decision before movie's U.S. premiere on next week.
More information:
AP/Miami Herald
SFGate.com