Disney and director James Cameron have been sued in California federal court by an actor who alleges Cameron misused her likeness as the basis for the character Neytiri from the blockbuster 'Avatar' films.
Q'Orianka Kilcher said in the complaint filed Tuesday that Cameron "extracted, replicated, and commercially deployed her facial likeness" for Neytiri's design, accusing him and Disney of violating her publicity rights.
Spokespeople for Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit on Wednesday.
"What Cameron did was not inspiration, it was extraction," Kilcher's attorney, Arnold Peter of Peter Law Group, said in a statement. "He took the unique biometric facial features of a 14-year-old Indigenous girl, ran them through an industrial production process, and generated billions of dollars in profit without ever once asking her permission."
Kilcher made her acting debut at the age of 14 as Pocahontas in Terrence Malick's 2005 film 'The New World'. Her other roles include a recurring part in the hit television series 'Yellowstone'.
The first 'Avatar' movie, released in 2009, became the highest-grossing movie of all time with revenue near $3 billion. The third film in the series, 'Avatar: Fire and Ash', has made more than $1 billion since its release late last year.
The 'Avatar' series is centered on a group of humanoid aliens called the Na'vi that the complaint says are based on indigenous cultures. The Na'vi protagonist, Neytiri, is played in the films by Zoe Saldana.
Kilcher said in her complaint that Cameron used a photograph of her without permission as source material for Neytiri's digitally rendered facial features. The lawsuit said that Cameron has acknowledged that he used an image of Kilcher, who is of indigenous Peruvian descent, from "The New World" as the foundation for Neytiri's design.
"The result was a hugely lucrative film franchise that presented itself as sympathetic to Indigenous struggles, all while silently exploiting a real Indigenous youth behind the scenes," Kilcher's lawsuit said.
Kilcher requested an unspecified amount of monetary damages for allegedly violating California's right of publicity law, which prevents the use of a person's likeness in commerce without their permission.
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