Hollywood lawsuits?

After writing about Gary Wolf's 20-year battle to get what he claims is his piece of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'s profits, I thought I would look at some of the more stunning Hollywood lawsuits and legal stunts, especially the ones that have anything to do with animation.

Whether it's creatives getting screwed by the studios (Deborah Gregory getting only $125,000 for creating the massive Cheetah Girls franchise), the Slesinger family suing, and getting sued by, Disney over Winnie the Pooh, or Jeffrey Katzenberg's five-year war to get his severance bonus, there's a lot of legal ugliness on display.

Disney's not the only studio with vicious legal wolves: Paramount tried to rip off Art Buchwald for Coming to America in a maneuver, the trial judge found "unconscionable" and Stan Lee had to sue Marvel to get his cut of Spider-Man.

These stories aren't pretty; in fact they can be downright ugly. Sometimes the good guys (and gals) win, but mostly they don't. But it's still a fascinating glimpse of what goes on behind the Hollywood glamour. I hope you'll check these articles out in the days to come.