Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Summit Entertainment’s Letter’s To Juliet stars a talented and popular young actress, Amanda Seyfried, and is positioned to counter Universal’s medieval action melee’ Robin Hood on May 14th. If EPV Enterprises has their way, however, the film won’t be seen then or possibly ever.
The company claims that it’s working on another “Juliet” project after licensing the story from a production company called ErgoArts. ErgoArts claimed authority over the story after licensing the life rights of a Verona group called the “Club di Giulietta,” which for 100 years has been responding to those very real letters. Their project, titled Dear Juliet, would follow a similar storyline as Summit’s film, but would instead focus on a couple answering letters to the titular lovebird.
Summit Entertainment and EPV Enterprises have been in a courtroom battle for some time over who’s truly got rights to the story, though Letters To Juliet was licensed from a book of the same name – quite separate from the Club di Giulietta’s real life story. Even so, in March, EPV filed a third-party counterclaim against Summit asking for an injunction preventing the release of the film.
“Summit believes the counterclaims stated by Ms. Rigas (head of ErgoArts) and her affiliated entities are baseless, which is why Summit initiated the action by seeking declaratory relief. Nonetheless, Summit has been in discussion with Ms. Rigas and her representatives for some time in anattempt to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution outside of court. Summit remains confident that should this matter proceed further in the courts Summit will be completely vindicated and is prepared to file a motion for summary judgment to that end. Plans to release the picture remain unchanged.”
