Buck Woodall’s five-year battle with Disney over who really created Moana looks to have come to an end today with a Los Angeles jury finding for the House of Mouse over the animated film, for now.
While the panel of six women and two men determined in just under three hours Monday that Disney and primary Moana creators John Musker and Ron Clements never saw or even knew about his Bucky the Surfer Boy work while working on the 2016 released animated hit, Woodall now has a separate copyright infringement action in the courts over blockbuster sequel Moana 2.
Right now, after a slew of internal communications and more animated sausage making was revealed in documents for this trial, Disney is taking the win and leaving it at that.
“We are incredibly proud of the collective work that went into the making of Moana and are pleased that the jury found it had nothing to do with Plaintiff’s works,” a spokesperson for the still Bob Iger-run media giant told Deadline after the verdict was read out this afternoon in Judge Alka Sagar’s courtroom at the Roybal Federal Building and United States Courthouse.
With the question of whether or not Musker or Clements or any other principal had ever come in contact with Woodall’s Bucky materials the primary question before the jury, any issue of similarity between the Hawaii set and Polynesian demigods featuring Bucky and Moana was moot. “They had no idea about Bucky,” Disney outside counsel Moez Kaba bluntly said of the Little Mermaid and Aladdin filmmakers in his closing argument Monday in the downtown LA courthouse. “They had never seen it, never heard of it.”
Like in the first case, which was filed in 2020 and still may be appealed I’m told, Woodall claims in beginning in 2004 he handed over his copyright protected Bucky the Surfer Boy trailer storyboards, “intellectual property and trade secrets” (including a 2011 finished script) to distant relative Jenny Marchick, then Mandeville Films director of development and based on the Disney lot.
As was made clear in Disney documents unearthed in discovery and in the trial, work began on the Herman Melville inspired Moana in 2011, a point Woodall’s lawyers jumped on. Unburdened now of the time limitations that were on his initial Moana suit of 2020, the January-filed Moana 2 suit is seeking $10 billion from Disney, or around 2.5% of the gross from the late 2024 $1 billion and more box office sensation.
In the end, because of statutes, Woodall wouldn’t have been able to see any cash from the first Moana, but he may have a Hail Mary at some dough from the second Auliʻi Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson starring ‘toon.
“This case arises from a two-decade-long scheme masterminded by Marchick but ultimately joined in with malice and for profit by all Defendants pursuant to the aforementioned conspiracy described in this Complaint,” the injunction relief and big bucks seeking January 10, 2025 complaint declares. “The scheme started out as a plan by Marchick to support her thirst to gain success in her desired career in the movie industry, at all costs, by working with the Defendants to steal all the components of Plaintiffs Copyrighted Materials, as that term is defined in this Complaint.”
“This theft resulted in what would eventually become one of the most unique and profitable animated film franchises in motion picture history revolving around Plaintiffs Copyrighted Materials and directly resulting in the Disney franchise known as Moana,” the lawsuit for Moana 2, which came out Stateside on November 27 last year adds.
For the record, Marchick was Woodall’s brother’s sister-in-law. Professionally, after time at Fox and Sony, Marchick now holds the position of head of development for features at NBCUniversal-owned DreamWorks Animation.
In Marchick’s long-ish stint testifying in the nearly two-long case, the exec stated that she had no memory of ever showing any of Woodall’s Bucky the Surfer Boy material to anyone at Disney over the years that her relative by marriage sent her material and updates. Correspondence brought up at trial also showed Marchick telling Woodall via email that she didn’t think she could help him. Marchick did eventually secure Woodall a job interview with a Disney Channel staffer for an animating gig but that didn’t seem to result in much
Lawyers for Woodall did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment on today’s verdict or the other pending suit. This post will be updated if they do.
No trial date has been set yet for the Moana 2 copyright infringement case, However, watch that docket, because you can be sure Disney is going to be asking Judge Consuelo B. Marshall to toss the whole thing out sooner rather than later based on today’s outcome.
