Earlier this year, an author named Gerald Brittle filed a fascinating lawsuit against Warner Bros. over the Conjuring movies, claiming that he owned the exclusive rights to the stories of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren because they had agreed to sign over the rights in 1980 when he was writing a book about their cases called The Demonologist. The Conjuring movies are also based on the Warren’s cases, but when Brittle sued Warner Bros. over this, the studio said that he couldn’t control the rights to the stories because they’re “historical facts.” That prompted Brittle to explain that the stories can’t be facts because they involve ghosts, and ghosts aren’t real, meaning that this was all basically leading toward Warner Bros. having to prove that ghosts exist in order to avoid paying Brittle the $900 million he was suing for.
The lawsuit itself could’ve ended up becoming a crazy movie all on its own—like a spooky version of Miracle On 34th Street—but this has all unfortunately wrapped up in a comparatively disappointing way. According to Deadline, Brittle has settled with Warner Bros., and in a twist that is nowhere near as thrilling as the “are ghosts real?” hook, he also admitted that a disgruntled producer named Tony DeRosa-Grund had secretly been masterminding his lawsuit the entire time. DeRosa-Grund was a producer on the first Conjuring movie and has repeatedly fought with Warner Bros. over money that he says the studio owes him, and it sounds like part of Brittle’s decision to settle had to do with DeRosa-Grund taking excessive control over the suit.
Still, the larger point here is that nobody has proven if ghosts exist, which is all we wanted out of this dumb lawsuit.
