Recently in an interview with Blasting News, best-selling novelist Tess Gerritsen when asked about similarities between the movie Gravity and her novel of the same name, stated she had "no doubt my novel inspired the 2013 film Gravity."
When asked about similarities regarding the movie life, she said "It certainly seems very close to my GRAVITY premise ( the single-celled organism of extraterrestrial origin is brought aboard ISS and evolves into a multicellular creature that kills the crew and threatens earth). But what really startled me was the ethnic make-up of the Life crew, which was nearly identical to the crew in GRAVITY: a Russian, a Japanese man, an Englishwoman, and a black man.
I have no evidence that the Life filmmakers knew about my novel GRAVITY, but that coincidence is certainly a whopper."
Gerritsen not credited in either movie
Of course, Gerritsen is not credited in either movie despite the emergence of further evidence that indicates she had more involvement than we were lead to believe.
In 1999 Tess Gerritsen having just written her novel GRAVITY signed a contract with Newline cinema which also happens to be the child company of Warner Brothers, the company attached to the 2013 movie. The contract indicated she would get credit for the forthcoming movie written by Alfonso Cuaron who also wrote the 2013 film of the same name.
In the interview Gerritsen claimed, "during its development, I contributed a third-act re-write of the script, adding a scene in which satellite debris destroys the ISS.
Years later Cuaron wrote and directed the 2013 film of the same title, about a lone female astronaut who's stranded aboard the International Space Station after satellite debris destroys her shuttle. How can he claim his Gravity was completely his original idea? It took me two years to research the space details for my novel, yet Cuaron's on record saying he wrote his highly technical script in a mere three weeks.
It's beyond belief."
The original movie by Cuaron was never released due to technical limitations, however, it seems highly improbable that the 2013 movie Gravity would not be at least in part inspired by his experience and some of Gerritsen's own script.
Warner Bros. had no obligation to honour any contracts
She went on to sue Warner Brothers for a breach of contract but was turned away because the original contract was signed by Warner Brothers' child company Newline cinema.
The judge said that Warner Bros. had no obligation to honour any contracts made by its subsidiary -- yet it had the right to exploit their subsidiary's assets. Tess Gerritsen stated she did not regret the movie deal expressing that, "when it sold to New Line Cinema, it was a huge movie deal with a lot of publicity. I was paid seven figures for the film rights, the biggest deal that year."
Eventually, Gerritson conceded that "ideas are not copyrightable. I certainly understand that, and it's very common for creators to build on inspiration taken from other sources. I don't mind inspiring other works, but it's only fair to credit the source. And when you have a written contract that you will be credited if a film inspired by your work is ever made. That signed contract should be honoured"
