Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Andrew Niccol’s sci-fi movie In Time will carry a credit acknowledging its debt to Harlan Ellison’s short story ‘Repent, Harlequin! Said The Tick-Tock Man’, first published in 1965. The move follows a law suit issued in September by Ellison claiming New Regency, Niccol and other unnamed parties had committed copyright infringement due to numerous similarities between the plot of the film and Ellison’s story. The suit credited the story as being ‘one of the most famous and widely published science fiction short stories of all time.’

Both film and short story feature (according to the suit) a ‘dystopian corporate future in which everyone is allotted a specific amount of time to live,’ and a government representative named the ‘Timekeeper’ who controls citizen’s lifespans. Other issues raised by Ellison were ‘features of the universe, [including] the manipulation of time an individual can live, the type of death experienced by those whose time runs out, [and a] rebellion by story protagonists.’

Initially, Ellison’s suit demanded that all copies of In Time be destroyed, the release abandoned and compensatory damages paid. The severity of this claim meant that some kind of settlement was inevitable, as neither studio nor filmmakers would want to cancel a major release. In an out-of-court agreement, Ellison has settled merely for a credit on the movie, acknowledging his short story as its source.

Ellison has previously won suits against filmmaker James Cameron, who admitted in an interview with Starlog magazine (although this portion was originally unpublished) that his The Terminator movie was based on ‘a couple of episodes of The Outer Limits‘. Ellison determined they were his episodes ‘Soldier’ and ‘Demon With A Glass Hand’. The author was awarded a financial settlement and credit on all copies of The Terminator.

In Time is on release at cinemas now.