PARIS – A French court dismissed a lawsuit against George Clooney and Warner Bros. filed by a screenwriter who alleged "Syriana" was plagiarized from her script, court officials said Monday.
Stephanie Vergniault had claimed the thriller borrowed "very largely" from a script she completed in 2002, but the judge said the two scripts were "obviously different."
Like 2005's "Syriana," Vergniault's story line, titled, "Oversight," involved CIA intrigues with oil companies in the Persian Gulf. The judge said the overlap was coincidental.
He also noted that Vergniault, who was seeking $2.5 million in damages, failed to provide proof that she had sent her script to a Canadian company with close ties to Warner Bros., as she had claimed.
The lawsuit targeted Clooney's film company, Section Eight, which he formed with director Steven Soderbergh; Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc.; and "Syriana" writer-director Stephen Gaghan.
Clooney won a best-supporting actor Oscar for his role in the movie.
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