A New Jersey-based author has filed a lawsuit against Disney last week, claiming that the movie Frozen is actually based on her life, and she wants in on the $1.2 billion cash cow.
The Peruvian-American writer, Amy Gonzalez, under the pseudonum, Isabella Tanikumi, wrote her two memoirs, My Living Truth, and Yearnings of the Heart. She claims that Disney ripped off her copyrighted works for the story of sister's Elsa and Anna in Frozen.
She is suing the company for $250 million and demands that all sales and marketing for the movie be put on hold while the matter is put before a trial by jury.
The author said she first noticed the obvious copyright infringement when she bought the movie and watched it with her daughter and she immediately was "appauled."
"These books deal with the story of two sisters who have tragedies, romances, conflicts, isolation and loneliness and there are significant similarities with your movie," she said in a letter to Disney which accompanied her lawsuit.
Some areas which Tanikumi points out which show definite (or not) parallels to her life story are the fact that her books take place at the base of snow covered mountains in Peru, while Frozen takes place at the base of snow covered mountains in the fictional kingdom of Arendelle.
She also says that she and her sister also had different hair color and both had horses. (There is a scene in the movie where Anna briefly rides a horse to try to catch up to Elsa who had run away. Elsa, however, was not seen riding a horse at any time in the film.)
Tanikumi says that she was courted by two men she wrote about in her books - Hans and Christoff. Anna in the movies also had two love interests - Hans and Kristoff.
She also said that as a child, she was involved in an accident caused by her sister and some hot custard that caused scarring on her face. She has no memory of the incident but was afraid to go out because of it. Similarly, Elsa nearly kills Anna at the beginning of the movie, causing her to isolate herself in her room to hide her icy powers.
Tragically, Tanikumi's sister passed away in real life and in her books, while Anna in the Disney movie is brought back to life.
Another point of similarity, according to Tanikumi's lawsuit is that the DVD cover of Frozen and the cover of her books is similar.
A peek at both the 2012 and 2013 Kindle editions of Yearnings of the Heart on Amazon, show the ebook cover of Tanikumi's second novel as a kissing couple superimposed into the clouds over a South American mountaintop. Frozen's DVD cover shows Elsa, Kristoff, Sven the reindeer, Anna, and Hans in a line, with Olaf in the center.
No word if summer-loving snowmen or singing rock trolls were also major players in Tanukimi's life story.
Reportedly, Taniuimi also claims that the award-winning songs from the movie may also have been plagiarized from her work.
According to the lawsuit, Disney has 21 days from receipt of the summons to respond.
Disney's Frozen was actually loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson's fairytale, The Snow Queen.
