Hit movie 'copy' claim rejected

The Day After Tomorrow looks at the possibility of a new Ice Age

A professor's claim that Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow plagiarised his novel has been rejected by a court in Germany.

The movie and Ubaldo di Benedetto's 1993 novel Polar Day 9 were based upon "entirely different stories", Cologne state court ruled on Wednesday.

Both film and book are set against the background of an approaching Ice Age.

Di Benedetto wanted cinema signs to say the movie was based upon his book, written under pseudonym Kyle Donner.

Characters

The 77-year-old Harvard University professor claimed that Roland Emmerich's film had stolen parts of his novel.

He wanted its German distributor, 20th Century Fox Deutschland, to publicise the alleged source in cinemas.

He argued that the book and movie featured similar scenes set in an Arctic research station, similar scenes of Americans fleeing over the Mexican border, and similar characters.

At an initial hearing last month, 20th Century Fox attorney Thomas Hertel said Emmerich was not familiar with Di Benedetto's book.

On Wednesday Judge Margarete Reske told the Cologne state court that many of the similarities claimed by the author "simply could not be found".

The Day After Tomorrow, which stars Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal, has taken more than $180m (£97m) at the US box office since its release on 28 May.