Surfing matriarch hits Lionsgate with gnarly lawsuit

By Danette Chavez | July 23, 2015 | 8:10pm

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The so-called first family of surfing isn’t looking to hang ten with Jennifer Lawrence—at least, not on a biographical TV show. Juliette Paskowitz—the widow of Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, who surfed for peace in the Middle East—has filed a lawsuit against Lionsgate Television and Polsky Films to over a breach of contract after they optioned the rights to her family’s story. Paskowitz is essentially asking the court to return a verdict of “piss or get off the pot”: She’ll accept $350,000 if Lionsgate and Polsky want to move forward with the project. Otherwise, they’ve got to accept that their option has expired and let her shop the story elsewhere.

Although Lawrence isn’t actually named as a defendant, she’s repeatedly mentioned in the complaint because of her supposed interest in the material. Our collective memory, a.k.a. the internet, has little evidence of this, though. In fact, Googling “Jennifer Lawrence surfing show” will just net you paparazzi pictures of the star running around on the beach—which, now that we’ve put it out there, will probably turn into the “Jennifer Lawrence Television Project” mentioned in the lawsuit.