Ice Cube, MGM Hit With $100 Million Dollar Lawsuit Over ‘Barbershop’

A Montgomery, Alabama man has hit Ice Cube’s Cube Vision Productions and Metro Goldwin-Mayer (MGM) with a $100 million dollar copyright infringement lawsuit, alleging the companies stole the idea for “Barbershop." Filmmaker James Davis, 31 said he copyrighted “The Shop” in 1999 as a college student, based off of his experiences in Atlanta, Georgia. The […]

A Montgomery, Alabama man has hit Ice Cube’s Cube Vision

Productions and Metro Goldwin-Mayer (MGM) with a $100 million dollar copyright

infringement lawsuit, alleging the companies stole the idea for “Barbershop."

Filmmaker James

Davis, 31 said he copyrighted “The Shop” in 1999 as a college student,

based off of his experiences in Atlanta, Georgia.

The breach of contract

and copyright infringement suit was filed yesterday (September 7) in U.S. District

Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

“My script

[“The Shop”] was copyrighted in 1999 while I was in college, and

theirs was copyrighted in 2001, the same year that I was getting investors and

letters of intent,” Davis told AllHipHop.com. “A very famous celebrity

gave Ice Cube my script and the story board. I am not saying two people can’t

have the same idea, but for our concepts to be similar is impossible.”

Davis said similarities

between "The Shop" characters and the characters of “Barbershop”

would ultimately vindicate him in court.

Other defendants

in the lawsuit include “Barbershop” writers Don D. Scott, Marshall

Todd and Mark Brown.

Davis said he negotiated

with various actors and comedians for one year in regards to appearing in the

film. During that time an investor offered to produce his screenplay.

“Once investors

got wind that MGM was doing a film ‘Barbershop,’ my whole operation was shut

down,” Davis claimed. “They stopped me from shooting my own film.”

Davis said he wasn’t

trying to capitalize off of the hundreds of millions of dollars the movie franchise

and subsequent DVD releases have earned.

“This is

not somebody throwing something out in the air,” Davis said. “I

am a filmmaker. They took it from me and I just want just due. It won’t

take a rocket scientist to figure this out.”

Up next for Davis

is a project titled “Black Greek Organizations: The Foundation.”

The DVD focuses on the history and current state of Black masonry, secret societies

and black fraternities and sororities.

The DVD will be

available at Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy stores nationwide in January and

features John Salley, Shaquille O’Neal and the last known interview with

legendary lawyer and Kappa Alpha Psi member Johnny Cochran.

Representatives for MGM

or Cube Vision Productions could not be reached as of press time.