With original video games becoming a new source of Hollywood movie ideas, game creators are finding they have something in common with script writers: Allegations that their ideas for movies have been stolen.

Stan Winston, who created the makeup and special effects for creatures in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “Aliens,” has sued a Chicago video game developer, accusing it of breaching a contract by signing a deal with Paramount Pictures to make a movie from a jointly developed video game.

Winston, who runs a Los Angeles movie and television production company,

alleges in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that he signed an agreement with Midway Home Entertainment to create characters for a video game called “Area 51.”

The agreement, the suit maintains, required his company to have the exclusive option to solicit movie financing or to self-finance motion pictures based on the game. In exchange, Winston offered Midway a reduced fee to create the characters.

After the agreement was signed, the suit alleges, Midway reached the movie deal with Paramount Pictures without him.

“He had the exclusive right to be involved, and Midway was not entitled to go around Mr. Winston and exclude him,” said Christopher Ritter, a partner at Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP.

Midway’s parent company, Midway Games Inc., which is majority owned by Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone, launched “Area 51” in retail outlets in April for Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s Xbox video game system. The games for personal computers were made available late last month.

Midway spokeswoman Natalie Salzman did not return calls.

Summer Sun


In a sign of an improved economy, law firms hired more interns from their 2004 summer programs for new associate positions than a year earlier, according to a survey by the National Association for Law Placement.

Los Angeles firms were even more aggressive in their hiring.

According to the survey, more than 93 percent of students in last year’s summer programs at Los Angeles firms received job offers. That was 2 percent higher than the 91 percent national average, which itself was up from the 87-percent offer rate in 2003. In Los Angeles, about 71 percent of those students accepted the offers.

Invitations for this year’s summer programs were also up, with firms nationwide issuing an average of 82 invites, from 74 for last year. In Los Angeles, firms extended an average of 81 invitations.

The survey results come from interviews with 137 law schools and 478 employers, mostly law offices.

SLAPP Relief


There’s another effort under way to limit SLAPP lawsuits, a tool that developers have used to try to silence opponents of projects.

The suits, short for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, are often brought on the grounds that the criticism interferes with the right to conduct business. But they are widely seen as an attempt to restrict speech protected by the First Amendment.

Current law allows individuals and businesses that succeed in dismissing a SLAPP action to win back their attorneys’ fees, but they are unable to get punitive judgments and emotional distress judgments unless they file and win a malicious prosecution lawsuit, which is more difficult to do.

Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, has sponsored a bill, AB 1158, that would make it easier to gain the additional damages. The bill has passed the Assembly.

Comings and Goings


Weeks after short ening its name, Howrey LLP has named its first chief business development officer. Allan Colman, a founding partner of DecisionQuest, a legal research and trial consulting firm, will be based in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., the firm’s main office. He will be a member of the firm’s executive management team and oversee internal training and client relationships. The firm has more than 60 lawyers in its Los Angeles office. It has been called Howrey Simon Arnold & White LLP, since merging with Arnold White & Durkee in 2000 … Seeking to expand its 100-attorney venture law group, Heller Ehrman LLP added a fourth lawyer in the practice to its Los Angeles office. Larry Weeks, who was a corporate partner at Bingham McCutchen, brings with him several clients, including Redpoint Ventures, Loop Net Inc., Apriso Corp. and Sabeus Inc. Heller Ehrman recently added two more lawyers to its venture law group in the San Francisco office.

*Staff reporter Amanda Bronstad can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 225, or at

[email protected]

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