Sony Drops Alien Invasion Film Lawsuit

After months of legal wrangling, the war between Sony Pictures and Chatsworth-based effects house Hydraulx, has come to a close with Sony dropping all claims.

Sony’s complaint stemmed from work performed by Hydraulx for their recently opened Columbia Pictures disaster film, Battle: LA. During the time that the effects studio developed designs and effects for the Jonathan Liebesman directed epic, company owners Greg and Colin Strause were also developing their own film, Skyline, about aliens invading Los Angeles.

According to Deadline Hollywood, executives at Sony were not made aware of the latter film, which beat Sony’s picture to theaters by four months.

Sony alleged that the Strause brothers used their insider knowledge of Battle: LA to help develop their own film and possibly reused computer work intended for Battle: LA, which had a reported budget of $70 million, for their smaller-scale independent effort, which reportedly cost only $10 million.

The original complaint, which was filed late last summer after Skyline out-shown Battle: LA at the influential Comic-Con convention, was viewed by many, including the Strause brothers’ legal team, as an attempt to force the smaller movie to move its release date. This failed as the movie bowed on Nov. 12, 2010, as originally scheduled.

The film opened to $11 million and has since grossed more  than $70 million  worldwide.

But, as with so many things in life, money seems to have solved the problem with Sony officially dropping its claims after their film grossed a healthy $36 million  during its opening frame, setting the film for a probable $100 million domestic gross and likely two to three times that much internationally.

Battle: LA is playing in theaters now, Skyline will be released on DVD March 22.